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The $0 Fix for a Rep Who Isn't Hitting His Numbers
Pulling a rep into one more meeting feels like leadership. That's the problem.
A rep Ray was coaching came to him a few weeks into ramp, short of his call target. Not because the target was too high — he said he could hit 50 a day in his sleep. He was landing at 32, 39. The calendar had eaten the day.
Nothing on that calendar was wasted, exactly. The marketing sync, the L10, the call someone thought he'd get context from — each had a defensible reason to include him. That's how managers see the world, because meetings are where managers do the job.
It's Paul Graham's maker and manager split, written for coders and just as true for a sales rep. Pull a maker onto the manager's schedule and the scraps of context they pick up get dwarfed by the hours they lose doing the thing you hired them for.
In this episode, Ray makes the case that the cheapest productivity gain available to most sales leaders is leaving their best people alone — and what to put in place instead when the meetings were really there to reassure you.
This is for owners and sales managers whose calendars are full of check-ins with people who'd rather be on the phone.
What You'll Learn in This Episode:
- Why a rep who can hit 50 dials in his sleep ends the day at 32
- The maker and manager split — and why salespeople sit firmly on the maker side
- Why the context you hand a rep is worth less than the hours it costs
- What it means when meetings are compensating for a lack of trust or visibility
- The tracker-and-check-in setup that replaces the standing meeting
- Why a full calendar is a morale crusher for a real hunter
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Welcome to The Ray J. Green Show, your destination for tips on sales, strategy, and self-mastery from an operator, not a guru.
About Ray:
→ Former Managing Director of National Small & Midsize Business at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he doubled revenue per sale in fundraising, led the first increase in SMB membership, co-built a national Mid-Market sales channel, and more.
→ Former CEO operator for several investor groups where he led turnarounds of recently acquired small businesses.
→ Current founder of MSP Sales Partners, where we currently help IT companies scale sales: www.MSPSalesPartners.com
→ Current Sales & Sales Management Expert in Residence at the world’s largest IT business mastermind.
→ Current Managing Partner of Repeatable Revenue Ventures, where we scale B2B companies we have equity in: www.RayJGreen.com
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Transcript
One of the easiest things that you can do right now to make your salesperson more productive. It cost you no more money. It will actually save you time and it is leave them alone. Let them cook. Let them do what they need to do. I'm going to break this down using Paul Graham's blog from from years ago, a legendary investor about makers and managers and why as managers we've got to let our people do their job and salespeople in particular.
Um, let me tell you what I mean. Uh, so I I had a call with a sales rep who is he's new. He's training. He's uh he's ramping up. His job is full cycle, right? So he's got to build pipeline. He's got to run qualifying discovery. He's got to run proposals. He's got to close the deals. He's got to run the the follow-up, the der. His job is hunt and sell. He starts and the the companies that he's working with gave him a minimum call count and said, "Hey, listen.
like as you get ramped up and get going, want you to build pipeline. We got a minimum call account a day of of 50 a day. A few weeks into this training, he he reaches out to me cuz I'm I'm doing some coaching with him. And he's like, "Dude, I'm having a little bit of trouble because I'm not hitting my numbers. Uh but it's it's not a function of like I'm not talking about the the minimum like it's not too much." He said, "Dude, I can I can hit these numbers in my sleep.
The problem is I'm in meetings all day and by the time the day is done the the amount of bandwidth that he has to actually do his job is very small, right? So, you know, he made like something like 39 calls, 32 calls. And here's the thing, like this this is not a rep who was saying the numbers are too high. This is not a rep who was complaining. This is not a rep who was looking for a problem or a complainer. He was saying this number super achievable.
In fact, I'll probably do 50 and then do crush much more on social selling and canvasing and other stuff. So, like he's he's a go-getter. He's a hunter. His problem is he doesn't have enough time to hunt because he keeps getting pulled into stuff in the business. And I said, "You know what? So, I'll break this concept down for you to the sales rep and then, you know, I I I took it back to the to the to the company and said, "Hey, let me let me give you my advice." And now I'm giving that to you.
It's about makers and it's about managers. And he wrote this originally for uh for like for coders, right? And and what he was was essentially breaking down is that within an organization, you have your managers, you have your makers, and your makers, let's call it coders, and in his case, people who are writing code, the people who are building the [ __ ] the product, he's a software investor. You got to let them cook.
Like you got to let them work because every time you pull them from what they're supposed to be doing and what their job is and what their focus is and probably what they want to be doing. By the way, every time you do that, you're pulling them into something else that you think adds value. Well, you know, they probably need this context from this marketing meeting. They probably need the context from this L10 meeting.
They probably need, you know, they might get something out of this this hourlong call that we're going to have. I'm going to have them jump on a few other calls. and you see the bits of value within each of those hour blocks or 30-minute blocks. As a manager, we make our money and we make the business move forward in meetings, right? Like that's that's what we do. Like we we manage people. We're not we're not doing anything.
I'm kidding. But you know what I mean? Like we're not really doing anything. We're not sitting there. We're not writing the code. We're not making the phone calls. We're not just we're managing people. And the way that we manage people is we have to communicate with them. And we have meetings and we make those meetings productive and we make those meetings useful and we work really hard to do all that. And but that is how we do our job.
We do our job as managers through meetings because we've got to communicate with the makers, the people who are actually doing the work. That means we see the world, we see value in all of those meetings. And so we want to pull people into those meetings so that they can extract the same degree of value that we have. There's an argument to be had that there is context in each of those meetings. Like yes, it does matter that sales knows what's going on with marketing.
It does matter that, you know, the new sales guy knows what's maybe going on on in the the weekly L10 or whatever meeting they're running for EOS. There are elements of value. The problem is they're not a manager. They're a maker, right? And a and a maker is doing stuff. They're making stuff. They're doing the work. And they make their money. they create value for the business and they move the business forward, not in meetings.
So long as they're doing their job, so long as they're doing what they're supposed to be doing and they do it and they do it well, that's how the business is going to move forward and they see the world differently because every time they get pulled into a meeting, they go, "This is taking me away from my real job." The manager's thinking, "This is my real job, and I need to make sure that you're doing your real job, and I need to make sure that you're doing your real job right.
So I've got to give you all the other context and there's this conflict and the conflict is the perception of which they see the world the perception which they see adding value to the business and the perception in which they see progress or movement. So manager we're making money and moving forward when we're in meetings maker I'm when I'm hacking away when I'm making my phone calls when I'm running sales that's when they're making their money.
The most important thing that we can do, business owners, managers, sales managers, whatever, is just recognize there are makers and there are managers. And your salesperson is not just a maker. They're not just doing stuff. They're doing the high leverage stuff. Like they are bringing in the the cash, which is your oxygen to the business. When you take them out of that spot and put them into the weekly meeting or put them into these group chats or you put them into all of these other things, you add them to the other projects.
The elements that you see of value are typically dwarfed by the opportunity cost of them not being able to do what they want to do or do what they need to do. In this case, this is a sales rep who's saying, "I need to be doing this." We as managers are making that making that job more difficult for that person. So I share this with you just to to put this in context. If you're a manager, if you're a business owner and and your role in the business is is one where you primarily move the business forward by meeting with other people through those meetings and where you see the value.
One of the most important things that you can do. It's easy. It's cheap. It actually saves you time, right? Like because it's fewer meetings on your calendar. saves you time by letting the cooks cook, whether they're coders, whether they're I I work in the world of salespeople, but letting people do their job. If you are having a lot of meetings in order to compensate for a lack of trust or lack of transparency, then what you have is a system problem, right?
And and and that's a totally different ballgame. Like, and you're not going to solve that with meetings. You're going to make it worse with meetings. the more meetings I pull this person into because I don't trust that they're doing their job, the less time that they have to do their job and I'm basically it's like self-fulfilled prophecy. That means we need some insight. We need some trackers. We need some some reports.
We need something else. So maybe you've got a sales rep where you're like, I'm not sure that they're doing what they need to be doing, so I'm trying to meet with them all the time and talk to them all the time. Well, instead say, listen, I just need to know that you're doing this and I need to know that you know I'm available to help when you need help. So, you know, let's do this. Let's set up a tracker. That's your asynchronous way of telling me that things are going on.
We can skip the meeting. Cool. Please know. And I'll check in periodically. Is there anything that I can do to help? Are there any obstacles in your way? Are is there anything that I need to clear the decks on so that you can continue doing the job that you are here to do and probably want to do. The bonus to this is not only that the job's going to get done and that you've got more time in your calendar. The real bonus to this is that if you hired the right person for that job, they're going to be happy because that salesperson is going to say, "Awesome.
I can go do what I want to do." Because really good hunters, I promise you, like the last [ __ ] thing that they want to be doing is sitting in meetings all day. It's a morale crusher. And it is it is just like it's it's like fish out of water. So, let them cook. Let them do what they need to do. Makers, managers, you've got more time now. If you do this, you've probably got more money as long as you have the right person.
Put the right systems in place. Hope it helps. Adios.
