Paul M. Caffrey (00:01.23)
I'm delighted to be joined by Teddy Peck, who is a sales leader working in New York from England. So we'll have to get into how he ended up over there. Teddy, how you doing? Welcome to the show.
Teddy Peck (00:15.004)
Thank you very much. Yeah, I'm good. How are you doing today?
Paul M. Caffrey (00:20.654)
Yeah, pretty good. Pretty good now. And I guess in preparation for this, we met up recently and that was quite nice. I got to see your offices and the great views from where you're working. So that was pretty nice. But I guess probably a lot of people will be wondering, you know, you're a sales manager, a lot of account executives, a lot of individual contributors who are listening to this. You know.
Teddy Peck (00:29.06)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (00:46.83)
What made you decide to actually step into management and become a sales leader?
Teddy Peck (00:53.416)
So originally I had wanted to do it for what I would say to be the wrong reasons. So for a little context about me, I'm the youngest of four boys. I also look the youngest by a considerable margin. I'm also the shortest. So like, I think I had always felt like a bit of a chip in my shoulder that I wasn't really old enough and I wasn't really...
big enough or whatever it was, you know. And so when I started working, I was like, I want to manage people because I wanted to have some level of, of control and power over those people, which is a really terrible motivator behind managing. Um, thankfully that changed. I did a bunch of coaching with, um, a great sales coach in during COVID, during lockdown. And he kind of opened up my eyes to, um, what real coaching was.
and how much it can help people, how much it helped me. And by the end of the six, seven, eight months that we were working together, I just felt like, you know what, I feel like I can do a much better job if I'm coaching and training people in the same way. And so therefore, management was one of those things that stood out to me. And so what made me want to do it is I felt like when I was a salesperson, there was a lot that was missed in my training.
And I was really lucky to be at a good position where I didn't lose my job. Like I had a great territory. I had great accounts and fumbling through what I was doing. Um, I did all right, but when I moved to the U S, um, it wasn't like that. It was, I felt out of place and I wish, I wish I probably had been taught a bit more early on. And so I just want to try and give that back to other salespeople that either I work with or no in some way, shape or form. So that's why.
I wanted to manage people.
Paul M. Caffrey (02:44.968)
Okay, it's Teddy, it's a really interesting insight to share that you got into management for the wrong reasons. But while they're realized, you know what, there's a better way to do it. If we help people prepare, if we give people what's missing from training, we can help them perform at a higher level. And I
Teddy Peck (03:02.404)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (03:05.838)
I didn't expect that answer, especially as we spent a bit of time together recently. So that's a little bit surprising to me because I do get the impression that you care a lot about the people that you're leading and the organization and the success of each individual, whatever that success might be, depending on their ability or on their level. How do you ascertain what's missing for certain salespeople in your team?
Teddy Peck (03:12.132)
Mm.
Teddy Peck (03:35.004)
So.
First thing is that I think they usually have a fair idea of what they think they're missing. And it's just about asking them, you know, where do they feel most confident? And they'll say, I feel most confident here. You know, what is it that makes that part something you're very comfortable with? I've done it a lot, or I feel like I get a good read on this, or I'm always prepared, or I've always been training this, whatever the answer. Um,
then I would ask them, and so if you had to say something that you felt like was the opposite of that, that maybe you weren't as confident about, or maybe you didn't feel as prepared and all the good things that, you know, you didn't have those, what would it be? Prospecting, you know, preparation or whatever it might be. And that's how I'd first start, is asking them, because usually people will say what they're missing. And then it's, do you want to get better at that? Do you understand the process of the effort?
the work required to improve that area. The second way is an assessment that I would do, which is we run, in my team, I run training every, well, four out of five days. So over kind of like 12 to one or 12, 30 to one, 30, you know, ruin people's lunch, that sort of thing. But we'll just role play and we'll take specific scenarios that people have got coming up, specific scenarios I've listened to on.
Paul M. Caffrey (04:40.246)
Yeah, it's...
Teddy Peck (05:03.772)
you know, on Gong or whatever, a cool recording software where we can see, I know that this could have been better. So I therefore get the whole team to practice that particular thing for a period of a week or two weeks. So everyone gets to see everyone having a go and through doing that for the past. Well, I know three years I've been managing people have, it's fairly straightforward to start finding the things that they're missing and then just approach that again.
which is either you can say, look, I really feel for your development, this is an area that we need to work on more closely, or just always make it the topic of the practice for a couple of weeks until they start to see improvement. So those are the two ways.
Paul M. Caffrey (05:45.838)
OK, so I like I like the idea of asking people what they think they're good at, what they think they can improve. You know, score yourself out of 10 on discovery. You give yourself a six or seven. Well, why is it that you need help with it? All all very valid questions and great to get people to actually think themselves about, well, you know, what do I need to improve? How am I going to actually get better? The role play piece is interesting. So daily role plays, I would say most people.
Teddy Peck (05:51.676)
Mm.
Paul M. Caffrey (06:15.63)
don't have that luxury or actually some people will be delighted that they don't have that because let's face it, a lot of people don't like role play. Is it a case of, you know, is one of those sessions where we go, OK, this is a negotiation call or this is a discovery call and.
Teddy Peck (06:23.548)
Hmm. Yeah.
Paul M. Caffrey (06:34.862)
we just go and ask each person to take on the objection that's been thrown or to show how they'd run a call. What would that actually look like if you wanted to play out one of those sessions?
Teddy Peck (06:46.012)
So typically the beginning of the week, I will message the team. I'll say based on my reviews of the whole team, this is a, this is a topic for this week's training. And so recently we've been doing, um, one of the things I noticed is that I had lost the emphasis on making sure that we had just confirmed that the person on the other end understands how they go about purchasing a product for their company.
You know, and so we were just working on three specific things is essentially, um, understanding the willing, like if they know who is willing and able to allocate budget, what the process would be to get that willing and able to actually put pen to paper inside a contract and willing and able to, to champion what this person wants. And we spent two weeks and it was like, we spend.
quite a lot of time thinking about, well, how do you phrase that in a way that's not like, give me a signed contract, give me more money as a salesperson and actually like gently understanding if, like if they'd ever bought something before, do they understand how hard this can be? Are they willing to put the effort in? And so we'd turn up, I'd say, look, John, we've got 15 minutes. We're going to do.
five to 10 minutes of this situation, this is what's happened, this is where we need you to get to, this is what we're gonna practice, and then we're gonna do two or three minutes of you giving some feedback, me giving some feedback, and the others who are there giving some feedback. And we're gonna go to someone else, you're gonna see a different way of doing it, then we're gonna go back to you, then we're gonna go to someone else, and that'll be the hour done. But that's how it works, if that makes sense.
Paul M. Caffrey (08:27.886)
Okay. Yeah. So you were, I suppose, failing to understand how you're going to get access to the economic buyer and maybe failing to map out the challenge that, you know, buyers face. It's not easy to buy. Certainly not as easy as it once was. So, okay. So you, you prepare at the beginning of the week and you pick out an area that you think will help the team and then focus on that.
Teddy Peck (08:46.394)
Hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (08:57.358)
Do you get much variation in how different people take it on? No.
Teddy Peck (09:06.208)
take it on in a sense of how they... What do you mean exactly?
Paul M. Caffrey (09:09.838)
I'll have to answer.
Paul M. Caffrey (09:13.902)
Well, are you trying to get people to work towards, let's say one particular avenue or one particular route, or is it a bit of a free for all and then just take down different, different techniques, different approaches. So what I'm, what I'm kind of getting at is duty sessions turn into cookie cutter best practice, or is there always variation dependent on your salesperson?
Teddy Peck (09:29.884)
Yeah.
Teddy Peck (09:37.66)
There will always be variation, depending on the salesperson. My opinion on it is the best thing I can do for people is be quite.
um, prescriptive in what I suggest based on what I would do so that they can learn a way of doing it. And then once they know it in kind of a prescriptive way, they can then take the very specific things, change language slightly. So it sounds much more like them. Um, it's a hard, I find that a hard balance. Um, I had, I,
Paul M. Caffrey (10:16.908)
Yeah.
Teddy Peck (10:19.1)
was seeking out some coaching from someone recently and he said, look, the feedback I'd give you is that you give a lot of feedback and it's hard to follow. And in my mind, I think it's because I'm very much like, but this is the way it's. So finding the balance on that is kind of difficult, but everyone's a little bit different, but the underlying like where you start and where you are likely to finish. I don't think in many salespeople, especially high performers can be that different.
Like a lot of them are doing the same thing in a slightly different way to someone else. So.
Paul M. Caffrey (10:49.74)
Yeah, no.
Paul M. Caffrey (10:57.134)
Yeah, I guess you can say something in a thousand different ways, but I suppose the message can still be the same, interestingly enough. Cool. OK, so when it's interesting, you share that you moved into sales leadership probably from an egocentric perspective versus more than anything else. But if you're working in sales and that's, you know, sounds like sales was going well.
Teddy Peck (11:04.666)
Mm -hmm.
Teddy Peck (11:18.522)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (11:24.366)
for you and it sounds like it's going well for some people on your team. What should salespeople consider if they're thinking about moving into leadership?
Teddy Peck (11:37.244)
Yeah, quite a few things. First, why? Why do they why have they decided that they're even considering it? You know, some people may just think, you know, you turn up to an interview, what do you want to do in three years? They go, I don't know, manage people, isn't that what people say? Isn't that and so therefore it almost becomes a thing that they want to do. So first thing is, is why on earth do you want to do it? Second is,
Um, have you really considered and ask people what it is, what is underlying, what management is, what good managers are? Have you had a good manager before? Have you had a bad manager before? What were the things that all of these bits? So when they consider it, they'd really need to think about, well, what is it? What does it involve? What are the great parts of management and what are the really terrible parts of management or, uh, sorry, more challenging parts of management? I should say, um, then.
And this goes for the salespeople. When they look back at the last two years of their time working, how often or how frequently have they, without really thinking, sat down with someone new and try to help them. A new employee, a new hire, someone who just got promoted from SDR to AE to senior AE or whatever the terminology is at the companies, you know, have they sat down and gone, you know, when I was, this is where I really found some benefit.
If you want, we can find half an hour. I can talk you through it. You can ask me some questions or Hey, look, I don't know if this would be of interest to you, but I was in your position for two years. If you want to meet once a month, you know, moan, you know, celebrate. So have you as a salesperson ever bothered to do that? If the answer is no.
that might be something to just work out if that's going to lend itself to what you would be more required to do as a manager.
Paul M. Caffrey (13:36.27)
Yeah, so I'm guessing the two reasons you're looking at, you you you seek out people to coach and to mentor is number one to see if if you like it and if you feel that you could lead people. But then number two, I'm guessing it's also useful for interviews and to be able to give anecdotal but actual stories of how you've maybe led people with a dotted line into you, although not directly in charge.
Teddy Peck (13:53.124)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (14:04.11)
What way should people structure that? You said, well, just meet once a month, turn it into a bit of a therapy session, sort of be a little bit more structured. What are your thoughts on that, Teddy?
Teddy Peck (14:17.364)
Pick people you think are good leaders. Good leaders, typically if you approach them asking for help, will help. I'll give you some examples. I reached out to a few different people. I said, look, I think this is before I became a manager saying, I really have decided that leading people, managing people, whatever you want to say, is something I want to do. I followed you on LinkedIn for a couple of years. I've heard great things from other people.
Could we find 30 minutes a month or a quarter so I could understand how you do it, what I should work on, where I can improve, and you can help me where I need help.
four out of five of them came back and said, yeah, of course, Ken, you know, this is the amount of time I can give you. You just let, and I would say, look, these are the things I'm gonna come to you with. These are the things I won't do. So if I don't meet those, then we don't need to have the meeting, you know, but I will meet them every time. So like, if I come and say, oh, I'm really stuck on this problem and I don't have examples of having tried to fix it or like gone and done something to try and change it.
Paul M. Caffrey (15:00.558)
Great.
Teddy Peck (15:25.596)
I don't think it's really acceptable to bring to someone. You know, so I'm not here to, they're not there to fix all my issues if I can't be bothered to try and fix them myself.
Paul M. Caffrey (15:30.286)
Okay.
Paul M. Caffrey (15:35.918)
So that's, I guess, how to seek out a mentor or a coach and get help. You mentioned LinkedIn there. So these you recommend doing that external to your company or is it with people within within the business itself?
Teddy Peck (15:40.122)
Mm -hmm.
Teddy Peck (15:52.796)
Yeah, great, great question. Both. It's the easiest way. Yeah, I'd say both is the easiest way. So my company, we have a mentoring scheme where people from all across the big parent company, about 30 ,000 employees, put themselves into a portal. So this is where I think I can help people. So I did that. That was great. Gives...
builds your network and builds your brand, which is a huge part of getting promoted or getting moved into a management role. Then I did one internally at the company. Then I would reach out to different people within, there was a program at the company where you could get mentored by a different head of a department. So I got a mentor by our finance director. She was excellent and really, really insightful. She was the first person to ask me why I didn't.
I had explained what I wanted to do in my career and she said, well, why don't you want to go further than that? You know, why are you just putting that as the limit? She was the first. So that was great. Then I would seek out mentorship from more senior salespeople and other managers that I thought good. And, you know, part of that is because you can learn something. Part of that, the big part of that is building your own brand at your company so that when the opportunity arises, the first name on the list is yours.
Paul M. Caffrey (17:16.206)
Building your brand is so important when it comes to getting promoted. If you don't do that, you can do all of the other work at a really, really high standard. You can do all the extracurricular activities, but if you're not known, you're not in the conversation, you're just, you're not going to get that role. And that's the sad reality. People can spend years working so hard and just not get the payoff and be effectively get told, Oh, we kind of considered you invisible. So.
Teddy Peck (17:33.308)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (17:43.438)
building the brand is what else are you doing to build a brand? You're obviously you're speaking to leaders, you're participating, you're coaching, mentoring people. Is that where it ends or is there anything else that you do to go a little bit further?
Teddy Peck (17:50.49)
Mm -hmm.
Teddy Peck (18:01.436)
Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things. I think building the brand is just like one of those things that, um, I was really lucky that my first boss at my second job was an excellent person for building his team's brand. Just, he did it in such a way that there was no, it wasn't bragging, but it was clear that there was good things happening and he wanted, and he did a really nice, so I learned a lot from him in that respect, but.
I was talking to a friend of mine actually recently and we were saying exactly what he said, which is just getting results is not the reason why you get promoted. So building a brand needs to be like, maybe there are some things that company wants you to do that they really value and they've really put as like a high priority and you think it's really stupid or really dumb. Well, your opinion is not relevant to you getting promoted. It is the other people's opinions who are, who are, you know, who's important.
Um, you ever like get onto a call when you're working and, you know, maybe you're on a training call, you're on a call and, and someone asks a question and clearly they're looking for people to give some answers. Well, it's often a good thing to give answers at that point. If you want to build your brand, like the amount of people that just saw sit there, not sure. And honestly, like, if you listen to what the company says, most of the answers are quite clear as to how you should phrase it.
And so I think those are two things, which is, you know, sometimes you've got to do stuff you don't want to do, but if you're looking for a long -term career with promotion opportunities, they are really important. The second thing is contribute, support people that are important goal. If they're there to train people in a certain way of selling, embody the way that they want you to sell. Be keen to do role plays, be keen to do...
Um, engage in activities. Don't be late attending things that, you know, it's like really simple stuff, right? All the kind of, from your point of view, all the preparation is like, what's all the easy stuff that takes no skill that I can do that makes me look good and makes others look good. And then the final thing is, is tell people what you want. Like it doesn't matter if you don't know why you want it sometimes because they'll usually help you. But I had a conversation with one of the guys that works for me.
Teddy Peck (20:23.996)
and he was about a year into the job and only at that year having asked did he say this is exactly what I want to do and I had to say to him look in future you know I sort of said well what made you wait before you told us that well I was waiting until I did something so that it would be more appropriate for me to say that's what I'd like to do in the future and so I said to him that you know that makes a lot of sense.
If I can give you some advice, six months before you think that moment's going to happen, that's when you start talking to people at the absolute minimum. And I said, and the example I can give you is I know you've been doing good work. I didn't know where you wanted to go. I had asked you, I hadn't got much guidance, but two weeks ago there was a, there was a role open that if you told me six months ago, we could have worked to making sure you were interviewing for it, for the role that you wanted, but it's difficult because I didn't know.
that that's where you wanted to go. And so tell people, you know, I want to manage people. So it's very long answer, but these three things I think are really important. I really want to manage people. It's like, okay, well, these are the steps you need to take to get there. Great. I'll just do those steps. Then I'll get there. And it's more straightforward. That was awfully long, but hopefully somewhat, some something in there was helpful.
Paul M. Caffrey (21:40.302)
Yeah.
Paul M. Caffrey (21:44.654)
I think there was a few things in there at very least that were helpful for sure. And a couple of things jump out, right? First is if you're not a part of the organization that you want to get into, you know, helping those people who are there. But if you look to network with maybe somebody's two or three levels above where you want to land, they are the people who will be consulted when they're actually building those teams. So you can have your name in the conversation by getting connected with those people way in advance.
Teddy Peck (21:50.492)
Okay.
Teddy Peck (22:05.978)
Mm.
Paul M. Caffrey (22:13.774)
I really like the point that you mentioned about, you know, signposting what you want to do next. And you should be doing that as soon as possible. And that is, I look ways to phrase that is I'm very keen to master this role and to reach a level of excellence and achieve X, Y, and Z. And also,
start building towards leadership in 12, 24, 36 months time or whatever, whatever your timelines are, whatever you're going after. Because as you say, and this is quite interesting because I guess your finance director, mentor probably alluded this to you is you can go a little bit higher if you actually speak it and share it. And what you find is when you do actually voice those goals.
Teddy Peck (22:40.474)
Mm -hmm.
Teddy Peck (22:55.484)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (22:59.054)
other people will subconsciously start trying to see if they can help you get there. Oh, you should have lunch with that person. You should speak to this other person or this course over here will be really, really good. Whereas you keep that to yourself. You miss out on that. So there's really no serendipitous help that's going to come your way. So there's there is there is quite a lot there which we could delve into. I guess one thing that I'm thinking is.
Teddy Peck (23:15.74)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (23:27.694)
What happens, let's say, if you're managing a team and this will probably be quite relevant for new managers. So anybody who's listened to this and maybe moves into management or maybe they're just managing or building teams out at the moment. And somebody interviews extremely well, but it turns out they're not a good hire. They're a bad hire for the role. What can you do? How can you manage that situation?
Teddy Peck (23:48.826)
Mmm.
Teddy Peck (23:57.692)
First thing I'd say is...
Teddy Peck (24:03.26)
Away from actually that individual in that situation, you need to understand what you missed. How did you miss something? And how can you ensure either you don't miss it again, or you understand what the failure was on your end, and then you fix it. So, you know, one of the things that you're not trained on as a manager is how on earth to hire people, how to recruit people, how to interview people, what you should be interviewing for. There's a great book called Who by
uh, uh, Randy smart or Jeff smart and Jeff some, I can't quite remember. Oh, I'll send it afterwards. Um, which is a good starting point, but to manage that person, I find this very, I find this very difficult. I saw that the mistake I made was not being explicit enough in my expectations of people. Um, you know, the first 90 days is where you can be as a manager responsible for someone being better than they could have been.
or being responsible for someone not getting to the level that they definitely could get to. So when I first hired someone, I set out a 90 day expectations document, 30 day chunks. And I wrote it, it's about 10 pages or so. I wrote it all myself based on what I thought was important for the person to know, what I wanted them to get out of it. Because...
I think you have to get it really wrong in most roles for it to be a really bad hire if you put quite clear guidelines in place. You you have to have hired someone that somehow you've missed, wants to be there for three months, get guaranteed commission and go on holiday for a while because they've got another job. You know, you have to really miss something.
Teddy Peck (25:52.956)
So I would say the first thing is reflect on what you missed. Second is make sure that the first 90 days, 120 days, two days, 10 days is so clear on what they need to do that at the end of that 90 day period, it really is just like they have not tried. And then if you get there and you can go back and say, look, this is where I expected you to be. This is how we were going to measure you and you are not meeting these.
Paul M. Caffrey (25:58.03)
Yeah.
Teddy Peck (26:21.532)
We're in a situation which needs to change or this might not be the right thing for you. And I don't want you here to be in an uncomfortable situation and it might not be the right thing for us. So that's the best I can offer on that. But for what it's worth for anyone listening, I find that very hard.
Paul M. Caffrey (26:36.814)
Yeah.
Paul M. Caffrey (26:42.766)
It's definitely, it definitely is difficult. The and you as an individual contributor, you as a salesperson, you can take ownership of that as well. So again, First 90 Days, great book by Michael Watkins. What it really focuses on is like, let's say if you go into a startup or a tech company that's maybe not as mature and doesn't have the processes and maybe you've got, you're working with a founder or you're working with a sales manager who's a little bit stretched because they've got a lot of different responsibilities.
Teddy Peck (26:51.162)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (27:13.294)
You can then look to take ownership of that yourself. So as in first 30 days, what are you actually going to do? And aligning with your leader, with your management, okay, well, this is what I'm going to do the first 30 days. Are we in agreement that this will look like success? The same for 60 and the same for 90. And ultimately, you know, probably the first 30 to 60 days are going to be more activity based. Hitting the 90 days in sales. Normally there are some tangible results that you can be aiming towards. So if it's sdr
Teddy Peck (27:29.306)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (27:41.55)
bringing in your first leads or having your first, you know, making that the first month we actually hit target could be your first deal if you're an SMB or whatever, whatever that might be. But at least then you can actually point back to what you've agreed and say we've hit it or we haven't. And I guess from a sales leadership perspective, you know, most probation is six months now. So realistically, that three month mark is a really nice soft touch point to kind of get a gauge for whether.
Teddy Peck (27:47.034)
Mm -hmm.
Teddy Peck (27:59.792)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (28:09.358)
This person's a fit, whether we feel like this person is going to work out or whether we should be a little bit concerned. So don't we hit the six month mark? We can make that decision. Yeah. Are we going to continue to invest in this person or are we not? So ownership is needed on both sides. And I think most individual contributors, most salespeople, I think most sales leaders would probably admit that the industry maybe doesn't quite get there. Here's your laptop. Here's your phone. Here's your zoom account, whatever.
Teddy Peck (28:21.594)
Yeah.
Teddy Peck (28:36.698)
Mm.
Paul M. Caffrey (28:38.478)
start working or here's a really, really over packed, unrealistic enablement onboarding program for you to follow. We've got to listen to 90 minute podcast, four hours of talks, this, that, the other. So your days are packed on. It's not realistic to finish. So again, I guess really it's on both people to take ownership of that. But if you are, let's say you've become a manager.
And you've got a bit of experience, but you realize that the support isn't here. Let's say there's a ceiling in this organization or else there's just no room to grow. What would you recommend the manager do if they have the good fortune of starting in a new organization with a clean slate?
Teddy Peck (29:08.988)
Mm -hmm.
Teddy Peck (29:31.292)
they inherit a new team.
Paul M. Caffrey (29:34.094)
They inherit a new team, they're not hiring the team, generally. They inherit A -team. Now they're nine times out of town, it's very rare. I've seen one or two teams being built, but it's very rare. It's normally inheriting.
Teddy Peck (29:35.388)
Or they inherit A team, excuse me. They inherit A team.
Um...
Teddy Peck (29:46.844)
So.
What I didn't do, but I will do, should I be or when I am in a situation like this again, is might sound a bit harsh, but put every person through your interview process. I don't know. I haven't decided on when you should do that.
Paul M. Caffrey (30:10.126)
Do you tell them it's an interview process or is it just a one -on -one that maybe turns into that?
Teddy Peck (30:16.924)
You know, Paul, you've exposed me for not knowing exactly how I do it yet because I don't foresee myself being in this situation too soon. But I'm not, I think I'd probably be quite upfront about it. I think being upfront with people is like quite disarming. Say, look, you don't know me and I don't know you. But my job is to ensure that you get to be the best that you can be. If that's with me working with you or if that's something else.
That's fine. I just want you to have the best opportunity to be the best version of what you can be as a salesperson. In order to understand where you are, we're going to go through just assessing your level in my eyes and in your eyes. The way that I do that is through pushing essentially an hour's worth of interview process. How do you feel about that? And if they... go on.
Paul M. Caffrey (31:07.15)
OK, so I guess to kind of just to pivot off that a little bit. Let's imagine a company is earmarked somebody to go for promotion or to go become a future leader. So they're an individual contributor. We're looking at them and thinking, yeah, they've got potential. Six, 12 months, we'd like for them to potentially move into a leadership role. How would you coach, mentor? How would you prepare that person?
Teddy Peck (31:22.522)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (31:35.022)
for the step from individual contributor into leader.
Teddy Peck (31:39.74)
So bring them along to, give them opportunities to lead the team. So if I'm away, there's one or two people in my team that I'll ask to take on my responsibility should they be comfortable with it. One, because I'd like to enjoy my time off work and two, because it gives them a chance to see what it's like. So that'd be the first thing. Second thing, get them involved in interview processes, whether it's a five minutes at the beginning, five minutes at the end.
just to meet someone that's being interviewed, just to ask them a couple of questions about themselves. However, you know, god, sounds a bit rude, meaningless, that might be to the result of whether you hire them or not, it gives them an understanding of what it's like to sit. And then you can compare notes. What did you think? Well, I thought that that person was good here and here, and I thought that person maybe was not quite as good here and here. But you need to, where I think managers, future managers, leaders, whatever,
are not trained is recruitment, what is involved in recruitment, what things should you look for in an interview process. You should start training them on how to work with other departments as well. So make sure that their network is not just salespeople, it's marketing, product, strategy, whoever else you think is important in there.
I think as well is have a really upfront conversation with them just to double check that they definitely want to do it. So I would say something like this for anyone that's looking to become a manager and talks to me about it either from my team or otherwise. I would want to share with them, look, you know, let's imagine that you did get this role. Some of the things you might not realize are some days you've got to be a therapist. Some days you've got to be a parent. Some days you've got to be a teacher.
Some days you've got to be a coach, you know, and this can change based on person to person, where they are in their personal life, their professional life, where they are against target, where they are performing for the day, for the week, for the month. You've got to be able to pick out what that is. And it can be very, very challenging. And you're dealing with a lot of emotions, not awful, lots of logic. Outside of that, you're probably going to be negatively impacted in the short term for the amount of money that you're making compared to where you are today.
Teddy Peck (33:55.42)
But long term is likely to be more beneficial for you as you'll move your career upwards and everything else. And you'll also have to cope with people not beginning to be honest with you at points when that doesn't suit them and understanding when to push and when not to push, when to challenge, when not to challenge. So knowing all that, is this definitely still something you want to look at and start working towards? Because...
I think that is the reality of what management is and I think it's the reality of what people don't get told.
Paul M. Caffrey (34:29.198)
Yeah, there's there's so much there that we could unpack you. I mean, you call it out beautifully that you're dealing with a lot of emotion and maybe not so much logic. And that can make anything challenging. And the fact that you realize you're playing a role as much as anything, you're ultimately there to drive elite high level performance from the team. And that is going to require you to have the wherewithal to know.
Teddy Peck (34:39.652)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (34:53.966)
You know, do you need to throw the arm around the shoulder of the team? Do you actually need to call the team out on when standards have slipped and let them know it's not acceptable? And then there's timing of when to do that with everything else that's going on. So, yeah, it is really is a delicate balance to all things considered. And that point that you do call out as well is when you step in to manage a team, you will, if you're a successful, great individual contributor, your income will drop for a period of time.
Teddy Peck (35:22.714)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (35:23.15)
But then it will exceed those levels once you start moving up another level, another couple of levels. So it is a bit of a long term investment as well. So I guess that's something else for people to consider, because there probably is a misconception that the leaders are maybe earning more than they are. And that can be quite interesting, too, because let's face it, the reality of you getting six or seven people to exceed quota for 12 months.
which means that you're going to be in the position to massively overachieve, it's highly unlikely. There's always somebody who leaves. There's always someone who's struggling. There's always gaps in the team where people need to be hired in. There's ramping. There's all these other things that come along. So if you're a leader and you're hitting target, that's actually a stunning performance. Whereas as an individual contributor, that's pretty good. But you do expect it from yourself when you've actually cut your teeth and...
Teddy Peck (35:56.858)
Mm.
Teddy Peck (36:15.42)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (36:18.158)
had success in sales. So very, very different dynamics altogether. I know that you're managing a team. Yeah, go on. No, go ahead.
Teddy Peck (36:24.7)
I think if I could say, oh, sorry, sorry. I was just going to say, look, I hope for those listening that this doesn't come across as a negative look on management. What I'd say is these are the things that I wish someone had told me prior to. And if you're sat there listening as I was, or which, you know, hopefully I would have been, if these aren't things that phase you and you can still see the benefits, then you will likely be suited very nicely for management.
You know, but the, it's like with, if you're selling something, I believe, call out the things that could be problems as early as you can so that people know. I actually heard you talking to Todd Capone. I think about that on your podcast a couple of weeks ago, but in the same way, you know, so if someone says, Oh, we really want it in blue. And you know, for a fact that you don't have it in the color blue, you need to understand if that is a showstopper or not. You know, stupid example, but like, if I want to buy a blue car and someone's only got yellow cars.
I'm not buying the car from them. And I think the same way here is like, these are the challenges that management presents. But if that's not an issue for you, let's continue to look at it. And so I just want to make that clear. I absolutely love what I do and lots of managers love what they do, but there are things that I wish I'd known before.
Paul M. Caffrey (37:38.958)
And that's, you know, that's what's really key about this. I mean, we're aiming to get into the truth that nobody tells you about management and how you can prepare for that, because it is an eventuality for a lot of people listening. So. I think that's very important that you've called it out and hopefully we haven't scared too many people off. I mean, there's a there's a few good resources. I mean, one that comes to mind is The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier It's a very short book.
Teddy Peck (37:57.18)
Yeah.
Paul M. Caffrey (38:07.16)
It's a very, very quick read and it basically gives you a structure of how to manage your one -on -one. So it's just a set of six questions. I won't jump into it now, but that can be something which can be very, very useful for you to actually build up in as something that you can refer to, let's say in an interview process. So you may not have actually had one -on -ones before. You may not have actually hired people before, but if you've...
Teddy Peck (38:17.084)
Hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (38:33.15)
studied, went, got a bit of theory of how one -on -one should be run. And you can talk to that in an interview process, whether you're networking for the promotion or whether you're actually in the interview itself. And also if you can shadow somebody who's actually hiring, because if you're going into a leadership role, you're probably going to start hiring. And these are these are skills and things that you can build up along the way to get yourself ready to go for promotion. But I know that you're managed, you know, you've worked in the.
Teddy Peck (38:49.594)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (38:58.126)
you know, prospecting side of the business, closing side of the business and so much more. What is your number one prospecting tip?
Teddy Peck (39:08.454)
Uh, use the phone. Number one is that. So, so there's two reasons for it. Number one is it doesn't matter which company I talk to or which person I talk to or which team I talk to. The data all tells me that to speak to someone with using your mouth and your ears, which is typically the best way to move something forward, the quickest way to do it. And the most effective way is to call them.
You know, not to email them 17 sequences and hope that they finally submit and, you know, and some maybe LinkedIn is great. But in terms of what you can do for yourself, number one is I use the phone because it's the best and quickest way to get hold of people. The second point on that is it's also so good for you to get better. If you call, if you email 50 people. Right. And you book one meeting, turn up to the meeting. If you call.
50 people, you speak to 25 of them and you book one meeting. You've had 24 practice sessions of what it's like to call someone in a very, and I think that that's how people get much better. And I've seen it in, in the teams that I've managed, those that use the phone more for their outbound work. Typically when they get to the meetings, they're like, Oh God, it's like a breath of fresh air. This person actually thought that we were going to speak at this moment in this time. And so they're like the work on.
Like I guess before the meeting, the part of the preparation is using the phone. But do you mind if I give one other prospecting tip?
Paul M. Caffrey (40:41.75)
No, I'm sure people are going to love hearing more prospecting tips.
Teddy Peck (40:42.876)
And this.
This comes from my dad who is an absolute networking genius. How he does it, well actually I do. You know what he does? He just uses his network to build his network. He is extraordinary at asking for referrals. And he's worked in the UK and he worked, set up an office in Germany for six years.
now has his own consultancy business and works primarily conveniently enough with New York based broker dealers and financial institutions. And he's just dots himself around just by asking people if they would introduce them to somebody. It makes it really easy. And that's how we met, not my dad and I, sorry, you and I. It was because one of my friends introduced us. And so do not forget your network and make sure you treat your customers nicely.
or appropriately so that they feel obliged to help you. So two things, user phone referrals.
Paul M. Caffrey (41:51.246)
really like that. And referrals is something which is overlooked. It's constantly overlooked, but you just you don't know the power of it. So I really, really like that. And even, you know, I like to extrapolate that. So let's say if you're working in an organization and you've got a territory that's really defined and you ask for a referral, you're like, it's going to be to somebody else in another territory. But if you become known as the person who's actually bringing all these extra leads and extra business to other parts of the company.
Teddy Peck (42:00.602)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (42:18.318)
What's going to happen when there's questionable leads that are coming into the business? Oh, well, well, maybe we should give them to Teddy because he's actually brought some leads and they went elsewhere and we should really repay that. So doing the right thing ends up with people doing the right thing by you as well, more often than not. So something to keep in mind. What is your number one sales tip?
Teddy Peck (42:27.932)
Mm -hmm.
Teddy Peck (42:35.676)
Yep, for sure.
Teddy Peck (42:43.516)
My number one sales tip would be it's almost entirely science and not an art. So practice as much as you can a process that you decide is your process, because a process is better than no process. But practice your process over and over and over because...
I really think the vast majority of people can be good at this job if they just put in the work.
Paul M. Caffrey (43:17.294)
Great, really like that. We've spoke a little bit about this already, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What's your number one tip to get promoted?
Teddy Peck (43:22.746)
Mm -hmm.
Teddy Peck (43:29.948)
It's not all about your results. It's about how people perceive you, what your brand is and what they believe you will do for them in their more senior role. If they put you into the next roll up, what will you, how, how will you redeliver their message? How will you ensure it's pushed down further? Um, a manager is responsible for let's say five people. A great manager can make those five people great if the people want to be great.
a not great manager, 5X, all the bad things that bad salespeople do, right? So when people are looking to get promoted, you need to understand what message your boss and your boss's boss want to deliver down to the people that report into you.
Teddy Peck (44:31.26)
I don't know if you can hear me, but I have completely lost reception. Oh, do you want me to...
Paul M. Caffrey (44:33.838)
I can hear you now. Yeah, I think I had an interruption on my end, which is unusual.
Teddy Peck (44:43.196)
Okay. Do you want me to go again on that?
Paul M. Caffrey (44:45.326)
I think we're out of time.
Um, no, I think we'll be okay. Cause I'll have your recording. So I think we should be okay on that part. Um, what, what book do you recommend people check out?
Teddy Peck (44:51.868)
Okay. Okay. Okay.
Paul M. Caffrey (45:02.134)
Let me rephrase that. What book do you recommend people should check out to get better at sales?
Teddy Peck (45:08.22)
better at sales.
Teddy Peck (45:13.34)
I, as we said, I've only just started reading your book, so I can't recommend it yet. I'm sure I will be able to soon. My, my, my, my favorite sales book is Gap Selling by Keenan. Um, reason being is it follows a similar methodology to that, that I was taught, which was Sandler. Um, but his way of, of.
Paul M. Caffrey (45:19.982)
That's we'll put that to the side.
Teddy Peck (45:39.932)
putting down in writing something that is so easy to understand and so easy to kind of like almost visualize. It's the best sales book for salespeople that I've read.
Paul M. Caffrey (45:51.63)
Yeah, there's there's so much nuance and what Keenan does, which I feel people maybe missed out at the surface level and he maybe gets concerned. Oh, yeah. It's OK. It's just really good discovery. But it's just so nuanced. There's so many different ways you can go. It really is. It's a great book and it's great methodology to use. That is for sure. Yeah, really, really like that. OK. And the first time it's been mentioned. So that's that's kind of cool as well. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Teddy Peck (45:55.962)
Hmm.
Teddy Peck (46:00.154)
Mm -hmm.
Teddy Peck (46:11.216)
Mm -hmm, for sure.
Teddy Peck (46:16.988)
Really?
Paul M. Caffrey (46:20.942)
So if we talk about preparation and we think about preparation, what is doing the work before the work for you, Teddy?
Teddy Peck (46:34.108)
A lot of it comes down to just giving thought to why you're doing what you're doing. So if you're about to turn up for a call with your boss to, to let's say someone's turning up to a call with me to, to role play something, right? There's a rule I have in place with them, which is you can book any time that's open in my calendar, but you have to come with examples of two ways that you've tried to fix the thing we're going to work on.
All right. And it's like, so if, if I'm a rep and I'm turning up to that meeting, the work before the work there is like, well, why am I actually wanting to work on my cold calling? Why am I wanting to work on my discovery? What are the things that I'm frustrated with? What are the things that are irritating me? Um, that if I changed them or got better at them, I'd be way happier or be way more satisfied or I'd be performing better or, you what outcome. So I think the big thing for me is just like, think, spend time in thought about.
why you do what you do on a daily basis, on a weekly basis. And so once you start getting a clearer picture of why is it that I turn up to Teddy's trainings considering they're at lunchtime, is it because I feel like he'd be annoyed if I didn't, or is it because I want to get better at something? I know it's a long way of just saying the same thing, but I think that the best thing people can do is just spend time thinking and just in thought about what they're doing.
Paul M. Caffrey (47:56.718)
Yeah. And I guess to extrapolate that point as well, I know Dan Martel talks about this a lot about buying back your time. And one of the things he advocates leaders to do is if somebody has a problem and they're going to come to him.
They bring three possible options and they share the one which they are inclined to follow. And they just check in if that actually is acceptable to the organization or not. So again, doing that little bit in advance is really, really key. I think it's nice because that kind of circles back to the beginning when we spoke about, well, when you spoke about.
Teddy Peck (48:20.41)
Mm -hmm.
Paul M. Caffrey (48:33.742)
actually networking with people who are internal to the company, but external and calling out what you're going to do in advance, calling out what they can expect so that they know that, yeah, this is actually going to be an interesting conversation as opposed to another therapy session. Teddy really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks so much for coming on. How can people find you if they want to reach out?
Teddy Peck (49:00.828)
Yeah, no, well, thank you for having me. If you're a salesperson listening and you're considering making the move to management, but you're not sure whether you should, you can call me on 347 -2600 -898. If you're outside the US, put a plus one at the beginning. If you're a manager and you want to chat about something like that, same thing. I'm assuming most people will go for the last option, which is to connect with me on LinkedIn. It's Teddy Peck. You can send me a message, but...
My phone number is the first thing on my profile, so you can feel free to call me if you wish.
Paul M. Caffrey (49:37.262)
Great. Well, it's the first time we've had a phone number shared as well. So thanks very much for that, Teddy. And thanks for being on the show.
Teddy Peck (49:45.404)
Thank you very much.
