#WomenInSales Month 2023 with Stephanie Slagle

We’re so proud to be celebrating Women in Sales Month once again.  

For each week in October, we have an amazing slate of women sales leaders who will be sharing their unique insights.

Today, our guest is Stephanie Slagle, Vice President & Chief Innovation Officer at Graham Media Group.

Stephanie has so many amazing insights to offer, like: 

• Why customer results should always be your north star 
• How even the Michael Jordan’s (or Lebron’s) on your team crave coaching 
• And, finally, why the mark of a great sales leader lies in the ability to articulate the path forward

LINKS:

Stephanie Slagle

Stephanie Downs

Matt Sunshine

The Center for Sales Strategy

Transcript

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Improving Sales Performance

Matt Sunshine 0:15

Welcome to improving sales performance , a podcast highlighting tips and insights aimed at helping sales organizations realize , and maybe even exceed , their goals . Here we chat with thought leaders , experts and gurus who have years of sales experience from a wide range of industries . I'm your host , matt Sunshine , ceo at the Center for Sales Strategy , a sales performance consulting company .

Stephanie Downs 0:43

We're so proud to be celebrating Women in Sales Month once again . For each week in October , we have an amazing slate of women sales leaders who will be sharing their unique insights From offering advice for sales managers , new and more experience , to surveying the anticipated landscape of sales in the years ahead . When it comes to improving sales performance , these ladies know how it's done . I'm Stephanie Downs , senior Vice President and Senior Consultant at the Center for Sales Strategy . I'll be joining Matt Sunshine on the show for the entire month of October . Today , our guest is Stephanie Slagle , vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Grand Media Group . Stephanie has so many amazing insights to offer , like why customer results should always be your North Star , how even the Michael Jordan's or LeBron's on your team crave coaching and , finally , why the mark of a great sales leader lies in the ability to articulate the path forward .

Matt Sunshine 1:52

Hi , stephanie . And step two , stephanie this is , I know , stephanie Slagle Hi . So , jumping right in , from your point of view , what are the things that you look at in the sales department that allow you to know that things are on track , like a better way of saying that is to say , what are your key performance indicators ? Are there three to five things that you're regularly looking at and that you pay attention to ?

Stephanie Slagle 2:25

So we are heavily focused on activity as a leading indicator of success , and so we have a proposals pitched metric , and so what that tells us is how many times were our account executives in front of customers asking for business ? And so the proposals pitched one is probably our most important KPI . We get kind of rid of all that down noise of all the things that led up to get to proposals pitched , although those are very , very important for our sales managers to measure . But that's really the largest one is how many times are we in front of customers . The other we actually have a subset of that one that's really important to our business growth , which is how many multiple product campaigns did they pitch ? Yes , that's an indicator of they're not just outselling a single thing , they're actually solving customers problems with their solutions . And so the multi product is a big , big , important one , probably the next one there . So those are two obviously developmental businesses right , those are .

Stephanie Slagle 3:36

We look at those on the developmental side . On the core business , which is still a very , very important part of our business , we look at the health of our key accounts . By health we mean it can be growth , it can be maintained if there's a loss in market budget , but our managers . We encourage all of our managers to have quarterly reviews and previews where they're looking at the key account , health , and so , is it in the best shape it possibly can be ? Are we serving these customers needs ? Because what we realize is that if that account is healthy especially in our core business , where a lot of those decisions are made at an agency level and not always with us in the room the fact that they're returning and potentially spending more with us is a big indicator that our services are working . So those are our main KPIs that we track .

Matt Sunshine 4:35

Yeah , I really like the way you articulated each one of those so many times . Stephanie and I do a lot of these conversations and what resonates the most , I think , with the KPIs is when they're essential in the sales process , right , like , not that anyone would use this as a KPI , but what if you said one of the KPIs we look at is how many times someone writes a thank you note ? Thank you notes are really really important , but there's really no correlation that probably could be made . Not every , not every you could make . You could be the number one salesperson , not send out that many thank you notes .

Matt Sunshine 5:17

You might have a different South , but everyone uses proposals . Yeah , everyone uses . Nothing happens without a nothing happens without a proposal , right , so it's a great one to have . And I also love and this has been echoed on this podcast again and again and again focus on what you solve , not what you sell . Yeah right , yeah Right . I mean and that's what you're doing when you're tracking the multiple products is let's make sure we're focused on what we solve versus just what we sell . Yeah , yeah .

Stephanie Slagle 5:52

If I had my perfect state , I would . I would love to focus on customer results only .

Stephanie Slagle 6:00

Love that Because in some of our products we can write in . Some of our products we can heavily focus on that , but not all . But that would be my perfect state is our , our , our customers are getting value from our product and that's why that's why the key account health is important , because we don't always get . We don't have a lot of information about all the way . You know , when we're talking about these large brands like a Toyota , right , we don't know how many cars they sold , that it's attributable to our campaign , because that happens many levels above us . But we do know if they're continuing to advertise with us , then they're having success on that price . So so , yes , customer results are the most important thing and should be , should be , our North Star , and all of those are proxy , that's exactly right .

Stephanie Downs 6:52

So let's stay on this similar conversation . But what should sales managers really be focused on ? Think about it in terms of you know , biggest rocks or those highest priorities and I know , coincidentally , stephanie , you and I were having this very similar conversation just yesterday . Yes , we were . I can guess what you're about to say .

Stephanie Slagle 7:12

You know what I'm gonna say . I'm gonna say coaching , coaching . Coaching is the most important thing because we have so in our typical sales team , we have two local sales managers that are tasked with working with their teams , and I always tell them we have two , which is basically a one manager to five person ratio , because we want them coaching and we feel like that's a fair coaching number , because our managers are fantastic , but they're a single individual and I need them to multiply what they do across the five . I need the five to constantly be striving to get better , and so coaching is the most important thing that they do . It is also the biggest challenge and I know this , I was a local sales manager too .

Stephanie Slagle 8:03

It's the easiest thing to set aside when things are on fire , right Cause you're like you know what . They're fine , they're fine , especially your season drips , so easy to just let those guys go and just be like you know what . They've been doing this a long time , maybe even longer than me . They're fine , I don't , they don't need me , but we really all need , we need to build a culture of all trying to come to it better and , in particular , those sales managers are the frontline of that , because I actually work with an executive coach myself myself I have for about eight years and she can help me see my blind spots and she helps me see the things that I'm missing . And I think that everybody , no matter how good you are , no matter how successful you are , I think everybody needs that .

Stephanie Downs 8:52

Yeah , your point about veterans . I think that is pretty common , that leaders have a little bit of a set it and forget it mentality when it comes to coaching veterans on the team . They crave it too , they want it too , and we don't often know that until they leave . And then when they leave , and it's the exit interview where they share some piece of information . It's yes , it is . But you think about all of the opportunities where coaching can happen right ? It's in filled , when managers should be in filled , it's during one-on-ones , it's even moments in the sales meetings when they're practicing . Pick a topic , it doesn't matter , there's so many opportunities . It is their number one priority .

Stephanie Slagle 9:38

So Another area I will , I'll give a shout out to my success training . The other area you find out about how much coaching they actually crave is when you do a growth guide . Yeah , Take time to do a growth guide . You realize that these , you know , I call them like the Michael Jordan . I'm showing my age , I know , but I call them Michael Jordan , of like our team .

Matt Sunshine 9:58

We're with you , we're right there with you , I didn't say LeBron I said no , michael Jordan Totally .

Stephanie Slagle 10:05

But you , you , the Michael Jordan's of our sales teams , right , they , they , they do want coaching and they , as soon as you see that and you see it in the field and you see them change and respond to it , it's actually as a as a newer manager , it was a little bit of a shock to me that they did want coaching , cause I thought , well , what can , what can I provide ? You've been selling longer than I've been in the business . How could I provide something ? But I started doing it and then I realized , but I can , because I'm not in , I'm not in their head in the moment , just like a good coach can watch a basketball player and see what's happening , cause they're not actually in the field with them , and so that's right . That's really a big , big piece of it .

Stephanie Downs 10:48

We always have the go ahead , matt .

Matt Sunshine 10:51

Well , one of the things that strikes me is that sometimes and I know I've had to have these hard conversations , sometimes with managers where they'll say , well , this person's a veteran and they don't want any coaching . And I have to be the one sometimes to say , no , they might just not want coaching from you . For me , right ? Because what they don't want , what a veteran seller doesn't want , is to have their time wasted .

Stephanie Slagle 11:19

Right .

Matt Sunshine 11:20

Right , and if you're coaching is just telling me what to do or pointing out cap , being captain obvious , and pointing out things that aren't no kidding . Yeah , a veteran seller is gonna say , well , you're wasting my time , right , but a veteran seller absolutely craves good coaching , and some veteran sellers that I know of where they're not getting good coaching go outside of their organization to have their own personal coach . It's that important to them , right , right , it's so important .

Stephanie Slagle 12:05

It's observation , it's truly observing and making a point that maybe they didn't realize they were doing or maybe they missed an element going I did miss that and helping them say let's try it . Let's just try it different , let's try it this way next time and let's see if it can have an impact . It might not , but let's see if it has an impact Also . Good job .

Matt Sunshine 12:27

Go ahead , stephanie I was gonna say .

Stephanie Downs 12:29

It's also important from a recruiting standpoint . People want to join organizations that foster training and foster coaching and know that they have growth opportunities . That's an important part of people joining organizations .

Stephanie Slagle 12:46

Absolutely .

Matt Sunshine 12:47

So I think for sales any sales manager listening to this the for career growth , for job preservation , you ought to become a really , really good coach , because sales management is a middle management job . It's very , very difficult , very , very challenging , maybe one of the more challenging positions in any organization . Yes , because you're the closest to the front line , to the salespeople , and you're the closest to the corporate side , so you're that person that's not lost . That job used to be a lot of putting together reports , putting together situation analysis , pricing , inventory . A lot of all of that stuff is being replaced by computers . Technology is doing a lot of that , absolutely . The part that technology isn't doing is coaching . Yes , it can't .

Stephanie Slagle 13:56

It can't be the same way it can . It can't be the same way it can . It can't be the same way it can . And you're so right that that should be the same way . That human piece of it , that human piece of looking at an account executive in the field when they're doing their job and observing a miss , an opportunity for growth , something that they're doing , that's they value that , even if in the moment they don't . But if done correctly , they totally value it even in the moment . Because if it's done with care which is no , I actually care about you I'm not just checking off a list because I have a checklist that I have to do . I'm actually care and I'm leaned in . I'm leaned in on this process with you . This is cool , like we could actually do great things together . And your veteran reps they want that right . They want to know that we're gonna do cool stuff together . They're not just out there on their own doing it on their own .

Stephanie Downs 14:57

Yeah , so , Matt , you were starting to tee up the next question that I want to ask , Stephanie , but how has two part question how has sales management really changed over the years ? Compare what it was like for a sales manager five years ago compared to what is expected now of sales managers .

Stephanie Slagle 15:18

Yeah , it is so much different than even five years ago , but even more like when I was a sales manager , which was gosh , more than five years ago , right , there's so much , it's so much different , right Kind of what Matt was saying where a lot of the tasks that we used to have to do because there wasn't technology to do them for us , those are starting to wane . And now the value , true value , of our account executive is the human connection with our customers . Yeah , like truly understanding their needs in a way that they can't type them into a software , right . And so the biggest challenge of a sales manager today and this is different , and this is why our sales managers , why we're bullish on training our sales managers on this as well the biggest challenge is helping their reps become true marketing experts . And I'll tell you , on the TV side of the business , that is really a shift , and we talk all the time to our managers about how we have to acknowledge that shift

Sales Managers in Transitioning to Developmental Sales

Stephanie Slagle 16:24

. Right , because the bulk of our business , as I referenced earlier in our key accounts , the bulk of our business comes from large ad agencies and in those cases , the decisions about the health of the business and how the KPIs of the business . Those have all been made many layers up , and so for our account executives , who've been doing this more than five years , more than 10 years right , that was the bulk of the business , and new business and developmental business was something you did kind of on the side , and now that is our most valuable revenue stream and so , of course , of course , our core business is so , so important to us because there's a tremendous amount of money there , but they can't influence the decisioning as much as they can on the developmental side , and that's really where we need our account executives . So to that end , we need our sales , we need our sales managers , helping them learn that transition . It's different , it's totally different .

Stephanie Slagle 17:24

The value proposition , the value transaction with an agency buyer was drastically different than the value transaction with a furniture store who's got five locations in your market . They're family owned . The value transaction is massively different On the agency side . If I run your points , or now your impressions , like we're good , like I'm solid and hopefully you'll come back for more and you'll see success , but I'm good if I run the points On the developmental side . I need to make sure that my campaign is helping you sell furniture period , and so I need to be more ingrained with that customer to understand how their furniture sales went . Is this normal ? Is this seasonality ? What's happening in your business ? All of those things have to be ingrained in our account executives and it's not the norm from our industry . Yeah , so we need our sales manager to do that Like we need . That is the biggest , most important part of it , because that is not easy . It's not easy to transition from the transactional sale to the developmental sale .

Stephanie Downs 18:33

It is a different . It is definitely different skills and experience , for sure , right . But to your point , though , they have to be able to have a business conversation . They've got to be able to walk in and the marketing conversation comes . It comes later in the conversation . It has to start with the business conversation . But back to your point , the sales managers need to be able to coach to that and know how to do that themselves .

Stephanie Slagle 19:01

They do . And that's a thing I remember when I was a local sales manager . It struck me because I just see patterns right and it struck me that we , as was many years ago so all of these you know , the digital and all the different wasn't even in place yet , but we would go out on new business calls and we would ask a list of questions from a sheet right . Here's the questions that we have and they're like , they're simple , like what's your budget ?

Stephanie Downs 19:27

What are the . What else are you doing ?

Stephanie Slagle 19:29

I don't know what patients do you have and then we would answer those five questions . They would answer those five questions and we'd go okay , and no matter what the answer is , we would reach in our bag . The AEs would reach in their bag and pull out the same proposal , regardless of the answers to the question .

Stephanie Downs 19:45

And does it that make you print , just to even think about it ?

Stephanie Slagle 19:49

It also blew my mind that , like my AEs were spending a tremendous amount of time sitting and preparing those proposals when in reality I don't even think they realized that they were kind of doing the same thing . I got some early morning news , I got some noon news , I got some afternoon news and they were spending a tremendous amount of time trying to craft that for the customer . Then , when I got into digital sales , I realized I can't do that in digital sales . I physically can't , because the , the solutions are so different . And so it was really eye-opening for me the value of that business conversation . To your point , stephanie , the business conversation happening first , because now I understand what their , what their ROI is , how many leads they're getting in a quarter , how many more they need to pay for this campaign , what they've got . All of those business conversation , all of that , all of that has to come first and I have to understand their business . And that's a different , that's a different , completely different conversation than what's your budget and are you doing billboards right now ?

Matt Sunshine 20:55

True . So we've talked a lot about what that current job of the sales manager is and what it used to look like At at at recording , it is October 2023 . I need to say that because this could change in a year , right . So right now , october 2023 , what makes a good or what makes a great sales leader in your opinion ?

Stephanie Slagle 21:25

I think the ability to articulate a path forward , the ability to show the team with enthusiasm and positivity that we're going to go this direction and it's going to be good , because before you know , especially with your newer reps , or even if you've got a new manager , before they get there , they have to trust you that there is a there there . And so I think the ability to look forward and say we're going to go in this direction , come on , look , come with me . And that transcends all of the paperwork and challenges and fires that come up in a day , because those are real and I want to say those are absolutely real and frustrating and time consuming , but a good sales leader can stand up and say we're going to deal with those , we are absolutely going to deal with all those fires , but we got to move in our direction and we're excited to go in this direction . Thank you , thank you .

Stephanie Downs 22:32

It's the constant messaging of that , too , right , just the consistency and message of where we're going and how we're going to get there and the plan to make it happen . Yes , okay .

Future Changes in Sales Departments

Stephanie Downs 22:45

So if you're speaking to a group of new sales managers , what advice would you give them ?

Stephanie Slagle 22:51

Oh , wow , okay , I would say focus on true customer results . Make that kind of your North Star , wow and the dogged determination to get to that point and get your account executives to that point , help them understand and see the value of that . The conversation changes significantly with a customer when you are actually helping them achieve their goals , as opposed to you have your fantastic package that you'd like to sell them . The conversation is a much more rewarding one for both the account executive and the manager if you can get to that point , and so I would say , help them get to that point . And I would also say again , my CSS training is showing , but I understand each individual might have a different path there . Each executive that you have have a different path there .

Stephanie Slagle 23:58

What is , while the metrics and the problem solving might excite one person , the human connection might excite the other person . And helping understand and figure out which one of those will work to get to a goal you need , which is truly them caring about their customers' results and moving in the direction that really , I truly believe if you are hyper focused on that , everything else gets solved . Yeah , everything else . All the fires are manageable because you have this thing that is working and is exciting for you , and all the fires that happen get managed over . They figure themselves out . Also , if you have a team of five people if you're a sales manager in our org and you've got a team of five people , you have more people to help you solve those fires . If you can coach them up , you multiply yourself and you have the ability to get even more people on board to help solve those fires .

Stephanie Slagle 25:00

You're not standing there all by yourself trying to solve everything . Yeah , well said .

Matt Sunshine 25:07

Final thought Looking into the future three to five years , because that is the future . That's like way Just three to five years into the future . Tell us what you think some of the changes will be in sales departments .

Stephanie Slagle 25:26

What are we going to see ? I think they're going to be massive in the next three to five years in our industry , much more so than the last three to five , which we all think the last three to five were nuts . I think there are going to be a lot more because I think , with automation and AI , a lot of the tasks we always hear that AI can take the repeatable tasks that the humans do and allow the humans to do the really valuable human tasks . We do a lot of repeatable tasks . Our humans do a lot of repeatable tasks . A lot of the things that bog them down in just the business of getting things to air are going to . We're actively working all of us all in the broadcast industry actively working to trim those things down , automate those things down so that there's less friction on the account executive . That's going to allow for more of these human tasks . It's going to allow our account executives .

Stephanie Slagle 26:32

God bless , this is amazing it's going to allow our account executives to actually be out in the field with more customers understanding the value of these campaigns , not working on the campaign , working on the computer trying to make sure it's running . All of those little things . A lot of these things are going to be automated for us . Also , we're seeing the other massive shift in our industry which will massively impact our sales teams is this we're finally at the point where television and digital are emerging , right , with connected TV , and so we've been talking about this point coming for ten years , and here we are , and so that's gonna that's gonna drastically change the landscape of what the sales department looks like and how we how we report back value right .

Stephanie Slagle 27:23

Television in the past wasn't really reportable . It was Neil's right , we'd give Nielsen post , but now we're gonna be able to report back in the same similar way that we do digital , which is super exciting to some , right , because that is that's , it's an added nuance . Now We've got to be able to figure out how we illustrate value Rather than just , hey , we ran the spots right . We have to illustrate value , and so those are a lot of things that are gonna change in the next Handful of years , and we are at Graham media group . We are super excited about all of them because they've been coming for so long and all ultimately , they provide more value to our customers . They allow us to illustrate our value to our customers , and so tremendously exciting to us .

Matt Sunshine 28:11

So I'll summarize what you said . The changes are going to be Based on the fact that there'll be more automation and more AI taking , taking care of or replacing the rip doing the repeatable things , and that will the big change will then come where Sales managers will have to spend more time becoming sales coaches and Aes will spend more time being able to do what they do best , which is sell Instead of process right and , interestingly , when you said that it made occur to me , matt , I almost thought it's almost like Aes will end up becoming client coaches .

Stephanie Slagle 28:58

Yeah , nice way of saying it is a nice way of saying that I like that because they're going to , and when we have that , when we have a good relationship with our clients , we really are coaching them on the best way To see the results that they need to see and we're proving that out and we're helping them . And so we see this , we see that that transition , also with a lot of , you know , younger account executives coming in where there's that like , oh , I don't know if I want to sell , well , we're , then you're helping , right , you're helping this , helping this customer achieve their goals and which we always say Strengthens our local economy . And if that's not mission driven , I don't know what is right . If you can't , if you can't get behind strengthening your local economy by helping that , helping that customer Sell more product so then they can hire more people and they can keep people employed , I don't know what's more mission driven .

Matt Sunshine 29:54

Yeah , no , absolutely go ahead , Stephanie .

Stephanie Downs 29:57

No , no , I was just saying that . It's so true , yeah .

Matt Sunshine 30:00

Yeah , I mean there's a direct correlation between what the A's do and Keeping the economy going .

Stephanie Slagle 30:07

Yes , I mean , if they do their jobs right , it makes a big impact on local economies it really does and we talked to our account executives about that a lot because you know people want to know that their work is Is having an impact and often in sales we're like I made the company money , yay , I don't know . No you're actually Businesses , you're showing your local economy , which is super important .

Matt Sunshine 30:35

Super important for a lot of reasons all of us that have sold media in our past or currently sell media , have and have done it at some sort of level of success , have had this feeling . When you walk into a business that you've helped , or when you're on the phone , the business Help and they say that . They introduce you and say she helped us grow to six locations , she helped us . Do I might introduce you to my salesperson from this company . They helped us . That's like it's better than all the mission in the world . Do what we do right .

Stephanie Slagle 31:13

It's total Nirvana and I really I'm so focused on all of our account executives having one of those moments Hopefully more because when you do that , you realize like I'm not just making money for my company . Yeah , I am actually impacting somebody else's life their lives right , multiple people's right , and it is that's so meaningful and and it it happens right , just like you said , that all of us who've been doing this you hear that and you're like , wow , I did something that actually made an impact , not just to my company's bottom line but to their company excellent well .

Matt Sunshine 31:47

Stephanie slay , oh , thank you so much for joining Today . You were an amazing guest . We really enjoyed having Having you on our on our on our improving sales performance podcast . If anyone wants to connect with Stephanie , we'll put her LinkedIn in the In the show notes so you can connect with her on LinkedIn . I'm sure she'd love to answer any question that anyone has the message or there , and Be sure to tune into the next episode of the improving sales performance podcast , stephanie Downs . Thank you so much . Stephanie slay , go . Thank you so much .

Stephanie Slagle 32:23

Thank you guys .

Matt Sunshine 32:28

This has been improving sales performance . Thanks for listening . If you like what you heard , join us every week by clicking the subscribe button . For more on the topics covered in the show . Visit our website , the Center for Sales Strategycom . There you can find helpful resources and content aimed at improving your sales performance .