Sales Ethics: Earning Respect in a Changing Field

In this engaging episode of "Love Your Sales," hosts Leighann Lovely and Rob Durant delve into the intricacies of the sales profession, exploring the challenges and misconceptions faced by salespeople. They tackle issues like overcoming the negative stereotypes perpetuated by Hollywood and the importance of ethical selling. The conversation highlights the critical role of proper training and certification, with insights into how sales professionals can elevate their craft to gain the same respect as other certified professions. Durant's experience and wisdom shine through as he shares the mission of the Institute of Sales Professionals to standardize and elevate sales education. The episode wraps up with practical advice for new sales professionals on navigating rejection and choosing the right job opportunities.

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Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am thrilled. I'm joined by Rob Durant today. Rob began his sales journey as a reluctant seller. He claims that he was tricked. Into his first sales role now as the CEO of a U. S. Operations for the Institute of sales professionals.

He is responsible for expanding the I. S. P. S. Global presence in the U. S. The I. S. P. [00:02:00] Has one simple goal to elevate the professional, the I'm sorry, the profession of sales. Its mission is to bring the level of credibility and respect afforded to doctors, CPAs, and teachers to the sales profession, which I absolutely love.

I mean, because. Far too often we hear, you know, Oh, they're a salesperson or, you know, somebody calls you and you're like, Oh, sales call, I don't want to answer. So Rob, I am so thrilled and excited to dive into this conversation.

Rob Durant: Leighann, thank you so much for having me here today. I too am, I'm looking forward to it.

You know, it's a pretty challenging profession when those in your own profession don't want to speak with you.

Leighann Lovely: And I've said this before, early on in my career, I would, I hadn't really [00:03:00] figured out networking quite yet. And I would go to these networking meet and I was taught to do it wrong, right? Um, they're Go in there. So make sure that you're making the most of your time. I'm paying for you to be there. Hand out your business card and come back with a sale.

And I remember I would see people who I knew were like financial advisors or, you know, real estate agents or, and I'm like, Oh, the salespeople, I don't want to talk to the salespeople yet. I'm a salesperson. And I would be like, run, run away, you know, because yet, you know, and I'm, I'm dogging my own profession.

Right. And it's like, Okay. What am I, you know, and I'm married to a man who's like, God, I hate salespeople. I'm like, honey, you're, you're insulting me. And he's like, well, no, no, no. I love you. And I'm like, well, that's a good, but yeah, even us who are profession, you know, our profession is to go and, you know, sell something ultimately at the end of the day.[00:04:00]

have made that same comment, like, Oh man, another salesperson. So let's, let's talk about that. Sure.

Rob Durant: Is it really just Hollywood's fault? I mean, we can blame Hollywood, right? When you think about it, how are salespeople depicted? In TV and the movies, the used car salesman and, the smarmy evil, um, financial trickster, those are, um, really what people who aren't in the profession, profession think of when they think of salespeople, but can we really blame Hollywood?

Because isn't that just Hollywood imitating life rather than life imitating art? Absolutely. We've earned this.

Leighann Lovely: Right. Right. And the sales professional and the [00:05:00] profession itself has changed. Absolutely. It's evolved to be something very different than it was back in the day when we, when we referenced, because we do, even I have referenced.

You know, the, the car salesman, especially the used car sales salesman. Oh, I got a lemon at dams. You sales salesmen or that, you know, and often we, we refer back, but that's where that kind of, that started, right? Sure. Oh, he swindled me into buying this. Did he, did he swindle you into, or did he use and leverage language?

That was catering to what you already had in your head. And sometimes it's both. And sometimes it's both because you're right. There are people out there who, and it's kind of like a magician.

I [00:06:00] mean, at the end of the day, a magician really is just a really, really good. Sales person. Sure. And kind of a trickster, you know, at the same time, but the difference

Rob Durant: is there. We want to be tricked. We want to be fooled. And so we buy into it.

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Rob Durant: I happen to be teaching my intro to marketing course the other day.

And we were talking about the chapter of personal selling, which is academic speak for sales. And I was asking the students about, you know, why do you believe this perception of salespeople going beyond the, you know, blaming Hollywood part? And one of them piped up, they lie again. I think we've all been on the receiving end of too many bad sales processes to refute that.

And I said to him, I understand where you're coming from, but one of the first things I teach my salespeople is [00:07:00] we don't lie, we don't cheat, we don't steal. And a lie by omission is still a lie. Oh, so that, that trickster component that you were talking about, that's. Less and less applicable because we're getting harder and harder to fool.

And, it's Dan Pink in, I get these books confused. Cause I, I use them together. Dan Pink has a number of books, but two of them, I think, pair well together. He wrote the book Drive, which talks about motivations and he wrote the book Drive, which talks about motivations and he wrote the book Drive, Uh, to sell as human, which really breaks down if you consider selling to influence the decision of someone else, nine out of 10 people, according to the evidence that he had put forth in this book, nine out of 10 people are in a sales [00:08:00] capacity in some way.

And he even contends that 10th person probably is too. But in one of those two books, he was talking about the rise of the internet. And what that did was the, asynchronous isn't the right word for it, but the, um, inequality of information where it used to be. Prior to everything being available to everyone, only salespeople had the inside information on the products and the pricing and so on and so forth.

But with the internet and the informed buyers coming into this process, he contends that the playing field is now level. I actually believe it's not level. I believe at this point. It favors the buyer because there's one critical piece of information the buyer still has that the seller is not aware, and that's their [00:09:00] inclination to buy their price point their walk away.

You can, as a salesperson, try and suss that out, but I have more information that than you do as we come into this conversation now.

Leighann Lovely: That's a very interesting, which is wildly interesting that you say that. Which is also why, to date, I have come, many salespeople, I'm just going to say I, many salespeople, and a lot of the training that salespeople go through, one of the critical questions that is asked that I tell my salespeople that they need to ask, and if they're not asking this, they're going to lose nine times out of ten, which is, what is your budget?

It's, it's plain and simple, because that person already has an idea. With all of the information in the world, they already have an idea of where or what that price point should be coming in at. If you, usually, if [00:10:00] I go out and I say I need a new website, you know, Rob, can you build me a website? And you come in and you say, well, it's going to be 10, 000.

And I've already done my research to have kind of an understanding that, well, I only need two or three pages, You're really building a website. It's that's really unheard of. If you're building like a mass, unless you're literally just creating a landing page. And even just with a landing page, sometimes there's an about you section that you want to go to.

And which is not truly anyways, I digress, but that, that buyer, if they have not gone and educated themselves to understand the difference between like a mass rebuild and. You know, to have a little bit of understanding of what the difference 1, 000 website looks like versus a complete and total mass, huge websites, then they're not, they shouldn't be buying this or making that decision on their own.

Does that make sense?

Rob Durant: Does. [00:11:00] But one caution I would have to a salesperson who asks that question is you cannot lead with it.

Leighann Lovely: No. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You have to earn

Rob Durant: the right to get there.

Leighann Lovely: Yes, absolutely. No, you don't just walk in and go, okay, Rob, what's your budget?

Rob Durant: But some do. Hey, this is bent. You know, the first question I've got to ask you is your budget.

Leighann Lovely: No, right. No, you need to build up. You need to build, you know, trust. You need to build the no like and trust factor. They before you get to that point. After they have an understanding of what you do, you've built up that know, like, and trust, then it comes down to, okay, so if we're going to move forward, let me understand what we're working with.

Let me have an idea of where we're at with everything, because I don't want to come back and pitch them this mass rebuild if 3, 000. Then we're, we're, we're talking about two completely different [00:12:00] things, but if you, if you have an idea, you are way more likely, and I've seen this, I've seen that mishap, that mistake so often in salespeople, where they're going in and selling the world, and this, and your, and your prospect is going, Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I, I don't need I don't need all of these things.

However, you should be also, you know, figuring this out through discovery, but I digress again. Let's talk about let's let's talk about how. We, how our industry, how sales professionals can start leveling up to create the ability to be looked at as professionals, because this is part of what, you know, your mission is, right?

Well, in your bio, your mission is to help sales, the profession of sales. And, [00:13:00] and so talk me through.

Rob Durant: So the ISP, the Institute of Sales Professionals is centered around the three C's content, certification, and community content, um, among the many things that we offer in terms of content, podcasts and webinars and so on. We have over a thousand hours of training in an LMS system. That our members get access to.

In fact, we are in the process of building and associates, uh, affiliates program where you do not have to subscribe to gain access to much of the content that we are providing. So from content, we then move to certification. The Institute of sales professions is [00:14:00] authorized. By the United Kingdom's government office of qualification to provide people with a certification in sales foundations and a certification in ethical selling.

And the unique thing about these certifications is there's nothing else like this in the world. Even as we look at other professional bodies. The professional body's authority to issue certifications generally comes from the fact that the body has existed and the industry acknowledges it. Our body has existed, our industry has acknowledged it, and we go through an annual audit from the UK government saying, yes, in fact, this is a rigorous set of credentials.

And while I'd [00:15:00] love to tell you that everyone who takes the ethics certification exam passes, and make no mistake about it, there is a certification exam, the fact of the matter is About 70 percent of the people that take it pass. So it's not just a certificate of attendance or a certificate of dues paid.

There is rigor to it. We want you to know what it takes to go into such an exam because the expectation is having had all of that training. At least some of it will stick. Right. So we've got the content and credentialing. The biggest opportunity there is community. We already do this. Thanks. In many ways, shapes and forms, we as salespeople already exchange ideas [00:16:00] and best practices and, and so on.

What the ISP does not want to get into is, here's the easy button for this, or here's the best hack for that. Instead, we go the opposite way. We look to uh, academia to tell us a lot of what the research in sales and sales enablement is telling us and how do we apply that in the the day to day. So it's those three C's that really help us forward the mission of elevating the profession of sales to be recognized as at least on par with other professions that go through similar credentialing and certifications.

Leighann Lovely: And here's the word that stood out to me, obviously [00:17:00] is ethical because When it comes, you know, a CPA, for instance, um, a teacher, a doctor, we just assume and understand that I'm using the word assume on purpose, because when we go to an accountant, we make an assumption that an accountant is going to be ethical and moral because they've gone through extreme testing.

They've gone through, you know, taking the, their exams, a doctor. I want to. I'm going to hope, I'm going to assume, I'm going to use all of those and say, God, you know, this doctor better be ethical. He better be moral. If I'm going to, especially if I'm going to a surgeon or in a teacher, if I'm sending my child somewhere, I want to see that, you know, that they're ethical.

Absolutely. And that's the thing that's, that I think people [00:18:00] assume salespeople are not from those Hollywood movies and from those, yet the majority of the people that I rub shoulders with in networking meetings, I won't say all. Because there are a lot of them out there. And again, I am sure that there are doctors and teachers and CPAs that are not, but we make an assumption based on what we have been taught and what we see again, using what you have already said in Hollywood.

Oh, then, you know, there's a CPA. Of course, now, now we have more and more movies where, oh, there's a CPA who's, you know, smuggling or whatever it might be. We have been taught that those professions are ethical, moral human beings. Absolutely. Well, we go into

Rob Durant: those offices and we sit opposite their desk and on the wall behind them, whether it is that doctor or the CPA or even that teacher, they have [00:19:00] a framed certificate on the wall from a credentialing body.

And that tells us without question, they were held to a certain level of ethics. They were trained in it, they were tested in it, and they are held to it. There is no equivalent in sales right

Leighann Lovely: now. And, and I will tell you that some of the people that I have met in the professional I work in are the most.

Moral, ethical, and the reason they went into the industry, the reason they do what they do is because they have sought out a profession in which they are capable of helping people in a way they have not been in previous careers. Right. I, and, and I am one of them. I, I started in HR. And because of the time that [00:20:00] I was living in, and again, we all have, we've all gone through seasons.

My, uh, my degree came during 2006, seven, eight in a time when the U S was crumbling. We were falling apart. We, you know, and I was trying to figure out what do I want to be when I grow up in a way in a capacity that I could help people. And when I think of a salesperson, especially the ones that I rub shoulders with, the ones that I keep close, my referral sources, they are very ethical.

They are very moral people because I don't want to do business with people who are not. They, and many of them, many of people who I've met through business have become friends because, of who they are and what they do. They want to do whatever industry they're in. They are trusted advisors, consultants, project managers in some type of capacity in selling, in guiding their clients [00:21:00] to a proper decision.

They are also the people who will say at the end of the day, if they're meeting with somebody and their product is not right for them, my product is not right for me, but maybe I can connect you with somebody who has the right product for you.

Rob Durant: Exactly.

Leighann Lovely: And, and the funny thing is, is that when I, when I do say that to somebody, sometimes they get offended.

Well, what do you mean your product isn't right for me? And it's like, just take my money. Right. Well, do you want me to sell something that is not a fit for you? Because then that would make me the sleazy salesperson that is depicted in Hollywood. Exactly.

Rob Durant: Exactly. I. I love that you said that you know so many that are highly ethical and you talked about how they are helpers.

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Rob Durant: I would say the significant majority of people in sales are highly [00:22:00] ethical and are in it, at least in part, Because of the great feeling of helping others when you were talking about, the great majority and, and comparing it to the other professions immediately came to mind the scene in the wizard of Oz, where Dorothy and the tin man and the cowardly lion and the scarecrow met the wizard.

 What he said to the scarecrow was Effectively, you've had this all along, the only thing you didn't have was the piece of paper proving it. Granted, we're talking about more than simply a piece of paper proving it, but we are talking about simply having a standard that is set and met. And by having that [00:23:00] standard in place and having the credibility behind what goes into that standard, again, as I alluded to, it's not simply a certificate of attendance or your check cleared.

It is the fact that you have honed your profession just as those others have. You've been working on your profession equally to anyone else that goes through those other certifications. This is just an opportunity to say, I have been recognized by my peers that I am a valued part of this profession.

Leighann Lovely: I love how you use that analogy because there needs to be a certain standard.

 In how do we measure something if there isn't a standard, if there isn't, if we never created our, you know, Inches or feet. How would we [00:24:00] ever be able to tell somebody? exactly how tall they are. A standard measuring system. But here's, here's the question that came to mind as you were explaining, you know, for, I've always been, been not always many people will say that, you know, sales is in the reason that sales is not a regularly taught thing at a college.

You can't go to college and be like, I'm going to go to college and get my degree in because Sales is so much of a personality trait, right? It's either you have some of the ability to just walk up to somebody and be comfortable in an environment where things are so unknown. An accountant goes into work and him or her, them or they, it's black and white.

They know what their job is. They [00:25:00] understand what the outcome is going to be. I need to balance this. I need to get the general ledger. You know, I need to do all of these functions so that my client at the end of the day, understands their numbers, has to pay their quarterly taxes, payroll. There's, there's no black and white there as far as I'm concerned.

Um, most accountants that I'll, you know, that I talked to, there's like, yeah, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty much, you know, this is, this is the law. This is how we go in sales. I've never had the same conversation twice. I mean, I've had some of the same objections come up and, you know, but a lot of it is just understanding how to shift and move and twist and go with the flow.

Rob Durant: Absolutely. However, I'm going to push back a little bit because what I think I heard you alluding to was there are some people who. Are able to do a sales role [00:26:00] in some people who are just. They don't have the socialization skill.

Leighann Lovely: And yes, and no, because I'm also going to say that I am a believer that every human that is born into this world sells.

Rob Durant: Absolutely.

Leighann Lovely: Because from the, from the day my daughter entered in this world, into this world. She began selling, negotiating and getting what she wanted in one way or another. I am a hundred percent after I became a mother, I went, wow, this kid is like a master negotiator and she's six. Like, I mean, because I've seen it firsthand and I see these little six year olds, you know, she's I'm using six year old because like I said, she's six.

I see them negotiating with each other. Doesn't matter whether or not they're shy, doesn't matter, you know, if they're. Like my daughter, who is a complete and total extrovert [00:27:00] running around talking, they all have the ability to negotiate because it's an inherent thing that we just do, you know, like, I don't want to play on the playground right now.

Well, I do. Well, how about we do it for five minutes and then we do what I want to do. Okay.

Rob Durant: Master negotiators.

Leighann Lovely: That is a. Like a very dumbed down version of negotiations.

Rob Durant: Yep. Uh, to call back to Dan Pink's book, to sell as human.

Leighann Lovely: Exactly. And when you said that, I was like, yep, absolutely. I've seen it. It is a complete, I mean, even to the day where parents are like, I can't get her to sleep in her crib.

Every time we walk out of the room, the cries. Yeah. As soon as you walk back in that room, that baby just figured out exactly what they need to do. To get you to buy into them.

Rob Durant: [00:28:00] Exactly. So we are on the same page there. I was just going to say that some of the best sales people that I know aren't necessarily gregarious.

They are not necessarily going to, be extroverted. Uh, the introvert that has An innate ability to listen can be incredibly successful in a sales role. In fact, I contend these days, that skill is more valuable in sales than is the gift of GAAP. Yes. And the other thing I wanted to share with you, mostly for your audience, because I was under the presumption and I used to joke about it.

They don't teach sales in college. They actually do now.

Leighann Lovely: Okay that, I did not know [00:29:00] that.

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Rob Durant: There are about 26, 000 students in the U. S. right now studying for either a sales major or sales minor. The uh, Sales Education Foundation just last week put out their annual education uh, publication listing the schools and the programs that they have and so on.

So while it used to be a funny joke at my expense, now I can no longer say that. The counterpoint to that is, let's compare that to the number of schools that offer marketing degrees, just as an example. It's exponentially more. So there's a lot of opportunity there for schools to embrace that. But there is in fact, uh, a major in sales

Leighann Lovely: that I did not know that.

So, and here's where I always go back. It's like, [00:30:00] okay, you can teach the foundation of what you need to do in sales. What I struck and you can teach as somebody is starting to, you can teach how to overcome objections. And I, and I remember one of my first jobs, I annoyed the heck out of every other salesperson because I would come into this meeting and, you know, it was, this meeting would go as long as it had to, to answer everybody's questions, which I didn't know early on.

Everybody hated this Friday morning meeting. It was mandatory. All the salespeople had to attend. Um, and so I would come in with my notes to all of the cold calls that I had made for the last week. And I'd be like, okay, so here's the objection that I got. How do I overcome this? And all the salespeople would be like, shh, that's your last, don't answer any more, don't ask any more questions.

And I'm like, yeah, but this is a really good way to learn. Like, and man, did I learn so much. And the owner of that company really [00:31:00] took me under his wing because he saw that I was taking initiative. And he's like, well, if you're going to want to learn, I will teach you anything you want to learn. I, I did learn to stop asking the questions in that meeting because all the salespeople hated me.

Shame on them. Well, yeah, a lot of them were, you know, had been at the company 10 plus years and they were just like sitting in a meeting for four hours on a Friday morning, listening to the newbie. Some of the, some of those things, you know, like, and maybe I, maybe I'm just. That old school mentality of either you got it or you don't.

But I've, I have also seen people who have come out of their shell because you've given them an opportunity. And then I've seen others just crumble because they just can't handle the nose.

Rob Durant: Yeah. Rejection. Nobody likes rejection. That's probably one of the, the biggest [00:32:00] challenges in the role is not taking it so personally, or if you're really good, taking it as feedback for going out and improving yourself.

That, that's not easy.

Leighann Lovely: The individuals who are those lifelong learners. who are willing to digest those no's and realize that it's not me. It might just be, you know, and I've gotten some, I mean, in my career, if you're, if you are a long term salesperson and that you've, you know, been in it for as long as I have, or, you know, Rob, as long as I've gotten some, some major, You know, swings, you know, I've had somebody call me back and start screaming and swearing at me.

Don't ever call me again. How dare you? It's like, and, and I've just chalked it up to, well, [00:33:00] this person was having a really bad day, right? And I got them on a really, like, something else was happening because for them to think that I'm the enemy. Because I called and said, Hey, can we talk about staffing services?

And that's how I, I guess, teach my people. Is that a no is just no right now. Unless they say, you know, we're closing our doors or we've, we haven't hired in 20 years, so we don't need staffing. And I'm using staffing as an, you know, As a sample or example or whatever, but just no right now. Mm-Hmm, and I've just always kind of taken that.

So if you had to give advice to, you know, a younger person who's thinking about taking a career or looking at a career in sales, [00:34:00] what advice would you give somebody? Sales can

Rob Durant: be a fantastic career. You can make a lot of money. I mean. A lot of money. Uh, you can travel the world. Don't mistake business travel for personal travel.

You get to meet incredible people, but it can also be very challenging. And for very much the reason that you were saying it's a lot of no's. It's a lot of pressure in very few other careers. Is your performance measured so overtly and so regularly? I think professional athletes probably are the only ones whose performance is measured more regularly and more public,

but there are things that you can do to continually improve that [00:35:00] performance to continually, uh, have better and better experiences with it. I, Again, we'll talk about the, class I had in my intro to marketing and talking with the students about it just the other day,

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Rob Durant: I was saying that when you're in the interview process, whether it's a sales job or any other job for that matter, it's incumbent upon you to screen for the right opportunities.

There are some sales jobs that just suck. There's no other way to put it. And as somebody new in their career, you probably haven't figured out what red flags to look for yet. But there are resources out there now to help you things like glass door reviews and things like rep view for sales specific roles can tell you what to look for, what [00:36:00] to avoid, which companies, which all of that.

And in terms of. The sales skills. I wanted to get back to that because you, you had mentioned, you know, we'll,

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Rob Durant: we can teach overcoming objections and so on in terms of a sales foundation. I believe there are four elements that go into a strong foundation when you are new to a company and those are, of course you want to know the companies.

Products and price points and their playbook. You know, how do we go to market? How do we reach our prospects along those same lines? We want to know the systems are what phone system do they use? What CRM system, what email cadence and so on. Those can be taught in a somewhat general capacity. [00:37:00] In so much as give people exposure to the concept of these things, but they're very specific to each individual role.

The other two pieces that are more aligned with every role out there are business acumen and communication skills. And I was sharing this story with somebody recently when I was tasked with developing an onboarding and ongoing training program as a sales enablement leader at a tech startup. I came in with this proposal and said, I want to hit these four elements, our, product and price, our systems, um, business acumen and communication.

And they turned to me and said, Rob. You have to cut your training in half, teach them our product and price, teach them our systems. We hire them because of their business [00:38:00] acumen and their communication skills. I said, really, where did they get them? You hired them because of the employer before? Well, the higher employer before didn't train them on those things either.

You hired them because they took, a sales major at a university. Not very likely. Right. Um, and I know some history majors that made fantastic salespeople. I know plenty of people that didn't go to college at all that are incredibly successful in sales. But the difference between giving them that foundation in basic Business communications and basic business operations is the difference between them taking three years to ramp up and 10 years to ramp up.

They're both going to get there, [00:39:00] but you've told me your business doesn't have time to wait. Why not set the foundation better from the onset? You can teach them one of two times. You can teach them at the beginning, or you can teach them when you have to go back and reteach them every

Leighann Lovely: and so many companies.

And being in the staffing industry for as long as I was, so many industries will go, we don't have time to train. So just send us somebody who is, you know, ready to just go. And then they bring this person on and they're like, cause yeah, Oh my God, he's got 15 years. He's going to be great. And three months in, they're like, This person is not qualified.

And you're like, no, they're wildly qualified, but you can't hire a person and bring them in and just give them no direction, no tools, and just literally give them a computer and be like, okay, there you go. Because you are too lazy as a company to [00:40:00] want to train. They, they need to know your culture. They need to know your, you know, they need to know who are as a business.

They, they're representing you. And even though you've Taught him your price points. You've taught him your products. You taught him that you have to work with that person. You have to offer them all the tools in the support. They need to feel like they're part of you, the company that matters. Otherwise, they're just gonna, you're just going to churn and burn these people and they're going to walk right out the door within three to six to nine months.

They will not last beyond that. And I, and you can't, you can, you can tell companies over and over and over and over that it's a you problem, not a them problem. And they'll go, yeah, yeah. No, it's the people you're sending. We're going to, we're going to just hire on our own. Okay. Good luck with that.

Rob Durant: We'll just hire somebody.

If they don't make quota, we can always [00:41:00] fire them, which is extremely expensive. It's not a good business plan. Sorry. It is expensive in ways that companies don't even see. Yes. It's incredibly expensive to recruit and train and. On ramp, any employee, sales is doubly so because

Leighann Lovely: you lose clients. They see that you have, you know, sorry, go ahead.

Rob Durant: Empty seats don't fill quota while they are being recruited and onboarded and up on ramp. They're not driving revenue. And that is the one part of the organization where it's blatantly obvious. As to what they're contributing to the company, so it might suck to have to recruit a new accountant and on board them and on ramp them and all of those [00:42:00] costs associated with it.

Well, if they don't account very right, I can very well. I can always fire them. You can hardly tell. Until, you know, unless it's extreme right. And, and even then it would take a while. Whereas sales, you know, day in and day out, we know what you've done for me lately. Ah, we can always fire them. Right. Do you know what the industry accepted turnover rate is for sales?

I don't. It's 25%. 25%. Is the industry accepted? Norm for turnover. That means when you hire four people in January, you'll have three people in July. You can't scale an organization with that kind of turnover. You can't even maintain an [00:43:00] organization.

Leighann Lovely: And not only that, is that the average employee is no longer staying at companies.

the length of time they used to. So now you have to bank on, of those three that stay, I think what the average length of time that people are now staying is 18 months. So by 18 months from now, most likely you're going to have at least one, possibly two of those people, if you're not making them really happy, if they're not doing really well, they might start sniffing around looking for another opportunity to level up, and then you're going to be hiring some more people.

I mean, it's, it's. It is tough right now in the world that we're living in. And if you're an organization that believes that you need to have your salesperson come into the office every day, Oh, well, you're screwed.

Rob Durant: Yes, it definitely hinders recruiting opportunities. It, uh, [00:44:00] impedes recruiting the best talent. Yep. I understand. The value of unscheduled collaboration, you know, because if it's on a zoom call, it has to be scheduled. I understand the, the value of that, but there are ways to account for that. There are ways to have training and development delivered in such a way that.

It works with remote teams and it's important for. employers to make those kinds of investments.

Leighann Lovely: Well, we are coming to time. I got this, this, it went by so fast. So I want to give you the opportunity for your 30 seconds shameless pitch before we wrap up. So [00:45:00] knock yourself out.

Rob Durant: Thank you very much. I'm Rob Durant and I was a reluctant seller.

In fact, I was tricked into my first sales role. Now, as the CEO of U. S. Operations for the Institute of Sales Professionals, I am seeking to elevate that. the profession of sales to be afforded the respect that other professions like doctors, CPAs, teachers, and other professionals receive. If you want to join me on this mission, I invite you to reach out to me.

You can reach out to me at the Institute of Sales Professionals, or it's very easy to find me on LinkedIn, Rob Durant. On LinkedIn.

Leighann Lovely: Awesome. And your, website, or wherever you would like, will your LinkedIn profile, your website. Yep. I see that you have that on here will be listed on the show [00:46:00] notes so that somebody, if they want to reach out to you, they will be able to do that.

Rob, I really appreciate, like I said, this conversation went by so fast, but I really appreciate your time today.

Rob Durant: Likewise Leighann. I really had a good time. I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Leighann Lovely: Yes. Thanks. Me as well.