Cultivate Relationships and Harvest Revenue with Nigel Green

Welcome to the Athletics of Business, a podcast about how the traits and behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance. Now your host, Ed Molitor.

Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. I am your host and CEO of the Molitor Group, Ed Molitor. And I'm really excited to be joined by our special guest today, Nigel Green. And Nigel is a sought after sales advisor and the author of phenomenal book Revenue Harvest, the Sales leaders almanac for planning the perfect year and the widely regarded authority on improving sales team performance. He has worked with dozens of B2B sales teams across the globe to more than double sales results. With over 10 plus years executive experience ranging from get this to Fortune 500 companies to early stage growth companies and a certification in talent optimization, he is sought after by executives to improve sales team performance. Nigel's insights have been featured in top business publication like Forbes Inc. Magazine, Fast Company Entrepreneur and Business Insider.

And he was recognized as a top consultant by Selling power magazine in 2021 and 2022. And as a consultant and advisor, he prides himself in the ability to help any sales team with big sales goals experience consistent sales growth through utilizing his seven sales leadership principles. And we'll talk about that. We'll talk about those principles and we'll also talk about how athletics translates into sales for Nigel. As a former college football player, he has some great stories, some great mindsets wrapped around that and how your uniqueness and authenticity can be a game changer and listening to your team and not just caring, but genuinely caring for them and how that is one of the most powerful drivers of success. Enjoy my conversation with Nigel Green. Nigel, thank you so much for joining us today on the Athletics of Business podcast.

I am beyond fired up to have you here.

Well, Ed, thanks for having me. It is one of these rare treats. I am an ex college athlete and everything in my life gets translated back to those 15 years that I played football. So we are going to have a lot of ground to cover before we.

Jump into talking business. Let's talk about your career, what position, your journey, just everything. And what football meant to you and how that does translate to your enormous success in the business world.

So I think you have to start by saying I grew up in Alabama where football is everything. It's one of those states like Florida and Texas and Georgia where I'll give you this example. So when we had high school football tryouts, the head coach would ask how many of you are going to want to play basketball? And you knew if you raised your hand, you were not going to make the team. Because the thing about basketball and football in high school is that if you make the playoffs in football, which we expected to do, it conflicted with the basketball season. And so it was a non starter in the state of Alabama to think that you were going to play high school football and then be on the basketball team. And so I grew up, I was a running back and a defensive back.

I was a 5, 7 defensive back, which is. That doesn't really work well. But we. I played on a team.

Well, that means you had some hops though, right? You could jump a little.

That's. Well, you could jump a little, but there's only so much ground you could cover when the guy that's six one can jump just as high as you can. But you had to play both ways. When I grew up, we didn't have a big team. You had to play both ways. And it's just where I play. But I was a really gifted running back, you know, where my size hurt me on the defensive side of the ball, like I could get lost offensively. We ran an offense where there was a lot of misdirection and I was really fast and so you just would lose me. And so went on and played football in college, played at a small school, University of the south in Suwannee, Tennessee, and played running back. And I'm glad I went to a small school.

I had some opportunities to go to a bigger school, but I got to play early and I got to play often. And it was one of those schools where we didn't let football get in the way of the overall experience. And so I'm very grateful for that.

But here's the thing, though. You play because you love the game, too. And you play because the game meant something to you.

The game meant something to me. And what I. When I look back on my football experience, it was the people and the coaches that meant the most to me. I mean, no one's. Nobody's. Digging up and looking at old film and remembering that game. And it's not on ESPN Classics. None of that's going on. We just remember the people that you played with.

It all comes back to the relationships, right? And the coaches. Tell me about the coaches that had the biggest impact on you. What were they like? What was it about them? And I'm really curious to see what that looks like to you.

So there were a few that come to mind. And, Ed, I'll say this. I never had a coach that yelled or cussed or said anything. Most of my coaches were like the players. When you coach Division 3 football, you're there because you love it. You're not there because of the publicity or the paycheck. And they always came at you from this perspective of you're better than that. And they were always encouraging it. And I remember our strength coach, he used to yell, that's no good, Green. That's no good. And what he meant was, green. My last name is Green. You're better than that. I've seen you do better than that. And they always cared about who you were. And I'll tell you, without exception, every one of my position coaches, I had two position coaches in my four years.

I still text with them, and I haven't played down a football since 2005, and I still text those coaches, and they care. They know about my family, they know about my kids, and I know about their kids. It's hard to replicate that outside of playing sports at an elite level.

Did you recognize that when you were younger? You know, how we can all be a little bit caught up in our own worlds when we're in college, right? We're college athletes. Did you recognize the significance of the fact that they cared about who you were?

No. In fact, I don't think I recognized it until I got into the business world and I left a couple of jobs. And then I realized that my old managers never texted me. They never checked in on me.

They asked questions about the family, didn't ask.

But, yeah, here's this coach that hadn't seen me in 10 years, and he's still texting me. And that's when I knew, wow, that was something special. Or especially with the players. You know, before we hit record, were talking about how we both have Text threads with 20 or so teammates that are always firing. I don't have text threads with old colleagues. It's not 20 old guys. I used to work with that, texting each other about stuff.

And how much of that do you think it's because, for whatever reason, people get so caught up in the transactional purpose of business as opposed to transformational purpose of business.

I think that is an aspect of it. And I think that, like, the other thing to add that I think is at least resonates with me is business is mentally and spiritually. It can be taxing, but it's not going to push you physically to where you. You actually want to quit in Most situations. I can't think of many times where I've been physically wanting to just give up in business. And when you do something that is so physically demanding that sometimes the only way you're going to run one more rep or get it to go to practice is because someone around you encourage you to do it, that's the transformational.

And you see your brothers to your left and to your right doing it.

You become someone different because of what they're able to speak into you.

So you play college football. You get. Tell us. Let's jump into that, because I think that's a great segue into your journey, right? And then how you subconsciously really translated what you learned and what you developed in the athletic world into your journey. I mean, you've had an unbelievable run in business.

Well, I. I never had good grades at school. I was a C student. I never let my studies get in the way of the education. And I just knew that I wanted to compete, you know, that I never. I didn't care enough about anything at school to want to pursue it passionately other than I just wanted to run life full tilt. And sales was a place for me to do that. There's a scoreboard, and a scoreboard is something that always was a place of comfort for me. What I learned about business because of sport is that there are. There's a language and there are rules. And so to give you an example, if you don't play rugby, you don't know what a hooker is, right? And if you don't play basketball, you don't know what a four or shooting guard is.

And so you got to learn the language. And when you learn the language and the rules, then you start to realize the scoreboard. And once you can read the scoreboard and know how the game's played, you've got a real advantage. And so sales is one of those unique roles in business where the scoreboard matters. And it's easy to know where you stand. And when you know where you stand, you know what you need to do next. And so I just fit in really well in the sales environment because I see said this is what I need to do to change the outcome on the scoreboard. And I just thrived. And so I, from an early age, was in sales and was relatively successful.

And then going back to the coaching piece, because I was coached so well in college and in high school, I became a really good manager at a young age. I knew how to get more out of people, and I knew how to transform not to Transact. And that was when my career really just took off like a rocket ship because I got opportunities to lead and get more out of people. And there's something very fulfilling about making that shift in your mindset that where you want to win, but you want to win with others, and you don't want to just put it on your back. You want to see a team of people celebrate and achieve their personal goals while the business wins.

I absolutely love this. And let's go back for a second. When you talk about getting more out of others. Right. I believe the great coaches see things in others that those folks don't even see in themselves sometimes. How have you been able to do that? And we'll get into where we are right now in your career, but how are you able to do that over the course of your career? Being able to pull more out of.

People in the sales world. And I coach sales leaders and owners of companies that are. Their business is driven by a B2B sales organization. And so we do a lot of hiring. And I tell them you got to hire based on three Cs and most leaders. And most hires are made starting by the least important C, which is competency, the ability to do the job. And I think the most important Cs are character, meaning that they have some sense of guiding principles. I'm not talking about religion. I'm talking about they have tenets and rules by which they live that shape the decisions they make. And I'm looking for someone that has character. And I'm looking then to take that character and have it inform the second C, which is chemistry. Do we share those? Okay.

And so if we can get along and we can share the same sense or same set of guiding principles, the competency is going to take care of itself. And so I'm able to get more out of others because we have character and chemistry. And when we have character and chemistry, I can anchor the hard stuff that I need them to do to something that's bigger than this job. It's bigger than this moment. It's who they said they wanted to be. It's what they said they wanted to achieve in life. You know, so it's like, yeah, I want you to make one more call.

And yeah, I want you to think differently because you said you wanted to save $50,000 for a down payment on a house because you wanted to provide some financial stability, and this is the best path for you to do it. Is that no longer true? Yeah, it's still true. Okay, well, then let's do the things we need to do.

God, I love that because there's so much in that 60 seconds right there. There is so much because you just attach personal meaning to what it is you're trying to accomplish collectively. And you just tapped into, I mean, now they're emotionally attached to the extra phone call, they're emotionally attached to the follow up, they're emotionally attached to the process. And when you started to see those results, I mean, was that like exponential growth for you all of a sudden?

Exponential growth in the moment. And also, I had no idea how fulfilling it would be for me to be able to leave a career, go into a different sector and then have people that worked with you from previous jobs want to come with. I can't imagine how satisfying it might be for a coach to get to coach, you know, coach someone in one team and then get to run into them again and later in another team. But that's, it's so fulfilling for me to be able to leave and say, well, here's a group of five people that are coming with me. They're going to drop everything in their life and come take this job to come work with me again. That's the pinnacle for me, that is.

And I question, have you had. I've actually have had clients who are former players of mine as well as former teammates of mine, which has been awesome. I mean, because just when you thought you knew everything about your guys, right? Your people, and just to go back to what you realized made them tick in the athletic world and put that into the business world is pretty cool. But that speaks to, I mean, you have people leave other teams to come work with you on these teams. That speaks to the way you did things. What was that relationship like when they came with you and the others around. You saw how that relationship was, right?

I mean, that just had to add fuel to the fire and more, for lack of a better term, more power to the way you were doing things with the rest of the team.

Well, what it allows for, Ed, and I think it starts by having some type of guiding principle. So I borrowed this from Pete Carroll in 2014. He wrote a book called Win Forever the Best.

Oh, great book. Great book. We're going to put that book in the show notes, by the way. We'll put the book Win Forever in the show notes.

And in that book he breaks down his philosophy into bite sized little phrases and nuggets. You know, one of them is Win Forever and he's got a few more that the team embraced okay. And so everywhere I go, every sales team that I lead, I get some little slogan. I call it a vision statement. Okay? And the vision statement is some preferred future. If we accomplish the mission of this business, we will have realized the vision. We will have rid the world of the problem. So that's our preferred future might be something like further faster or onward and upward. But what it does in the present, Ed, is it becomes the mantra and the self governing tool. So I don't have to always be the police. Other people on the team, even rookies, can say, hey, Sally, that's not further faster.

Hey, Joe, you're not doing it the way that we said were going to do it. So I don't always have to be the bad guy. And I tell them, this is your team. You all signed up for this vision to accomplish this mission. If you don't want it anymore, nobody's locking the door, you can leave. But if you're going to be here, we're going to do it this way. And then it's just been a beautiful thing to see how the whole team rallies around that and they keep each other in check.

Now there's some vulnerability there too, right? Like if you're doing this as a group, I mean, you're, you've got to make yourself vulnerable. Talk about how that shows up in their success.

Well, and I think the key to vulnerability is knowing you're, you are going to be accepted for who you are. And in order to be accepted for who you are, it starts, it goes back to the character and chemistry. I got to know who you are before I even let you in the team. And then if I know who you are, then you feel permission to be your authentic self. It's okay to be vulnerable because you are already known. And I think when people start to really wonder and doubt whether they're known, that's when we get phony and that's when it's hard to really compete. Because when we have, especially in the sales world, when your team is so focused about what's going on inside the organization, they're worried about internally, where they stand. They're competing with one another.

If they're facing inward, they've turned their back on the market. And so I need a team that's not worried about where they stand, how this team's doing, culturally, how the business is doing, but they can go and face the market and help our customers solve problems.

So how does the leader help that happen? How does the leader make that happen?

Well, the leader Makes that happen by having you get two things in leadership. Okay? The first thing, and where we spend most of our time as leaders is focusing on what we can create. Okay, we're gonna go do this, we're gonna go do that. Well, the other thing and where I want leaders to spend more time is spending an equitable amount of time on what you tolerate. And I just don't tolerate anything less than what we agreed. Again, and this is the other key piece, what we all agreed. It's not Nigel's rules. It's what the team said was the standard. And I won't tolerate anything less than what the teen said was the standard.

Talk about standards. For whatever reason, sometimes our society thinks that standards means the bare minimum. Like, this is what we have. This is what we have to. What do standards mean to you?

Standard means to me, in my world, that the business has a stated expectation from this team. Our standard is going to be so far above that even when we fall short, the business is not going to know. And it's not just a result. So it's not just a quantitative number of calls or revenue or closed deals, but it's also how we're going to do it. There's a qualitative metric. It's not just that we win, but it's how we win. And you'll hear coaches say it's how we practice that matters. Well, I take that into work. It's how we show up every day that matters.

Right. And I believe sometimes there's a challenge to differentiate between standards and expectations. And I believe standards are the. Are the support of the expectations that you have. You know, what is going to happen? What is it that we believe, Absolutely believe, can, should, and will happen? Can you talk to me? Because sometimes people think like expectations are built in resentments, which is. I think that's a way out. Okay? Because I expect something of myself every single day when I show up.

Well, so here's the thing. So there's going to be conflict when expectations and desire get misaligned. Okay? So when you no longer desire what I desire, then the expectation creates conflict. Okay? Standards are a tool that a leader has to make sure that expectations and desires are aligned. Okay? So we submit to a standard, which drives an expectation so that we achieve what we all desire. And if you no longer desire that, then the expectations seem punitive.

And is there a way for us as coaching leaders to not change our expectations, but to communicate them in such a way where they do align or make more sense to you and what your personal goals are and what your desires are.

Absolutely. And one of the tools that I love is good questions. Okay. I can't tell you what's true. I can ask you what's true and you tell me. So I mean, and I learned this from my coaches. Good questions. Right. So you don't like the standard. Okay, great. Tell me about it. What do you not like about it? What's changed since we agreed to it? What's different about today? I'm asking really good questions around the conflict to get to have your desires changed, have your expectations changed? Because the standard. See, standards don't move. Standards pretty much stay the same. But how we interface with them is driven by how we feel today, what's going on in our personal life.

And so leaders need to ask good questions to check in on what's changed in your situation that now makes this standard uncomfortable or untenable for you.

And if you look at the last few minutes of this conversation and what we've talked about, we keep going back to talking about them, asking them questions about them. All right? What's going on in their world. And I firmly believe, and I want to see what you say about this. I firmly believe what we're. Not only are we learning things now that they understand that we care. Right? Right. Not only do we value them, but we're also figuring out what makes our people tick, and we're figuring out how we can put them in a better position to maximize their success. How does that hold true for you?

Well, it's interesting. Today's May 17, and I posted about this on LinkedIn. I said, I got this from a pastor that I really like to listen to. His name's Andy Stanley, and he says time in dilutes awareness of the longer you've been in something, a marriage, a business team, a sport, the less likely you are to know how it really is. So what's the implication? For me as a leader, I can ask good questions of the team, but I also have this responsibility to ask the newest people, how is it really? I told you this was a team that had standards around X, Y and Z. Is that true? Really? How have you experienced it? And there's a great book called Rookie Smarts. Liz Wiseman wrote this book, and one of the examples, and this is. You'll love this.

I don't know if you've watched Winning Time, the HBO show, but it's about Magic Johnson and how Magic Johnson, when they're flying to Philadelphia for Game 6, Kareem's hurt and he sits in Kareem's chair. Like it's okay to go to a rookie and say, you're just as good as everybody else. Tell me, how is it really? Tell me what's really going on here. And I think as leaders, we get comfortable with certain people. We get comfortable because we've got time and we've got tenure with them. We got to go to everybody and say, is this true?

Really? And how much does that play into change? I mean, we're seeing this at a pace and range that we've never, ever seen. And it's just going to keep getting faster and greater number. But why are folks that have been around, been in the game for a while sometimes afraid of change or sometimes opposed to change, or sometimes don't run to the fight right away. And there's sort of a delay in their discretionary thinking. Why is that?

Well, it's preservation. They're grabbing onto something. So if you look in the business world, in the investing world, when we look at the term value means that there is anticipation of future growth. We're going to invest in a company that we think has a bright future. You look at your top performers, your MVPs, you look at your reps of the year. Those awards are given to past performance. And so oftentimes, the new value that's going to be created on your team and in your business is from someone that hasn't yet won that award. And so your top performers are grasping they're outliers. But sometimes your top performers are grasping and trying to preserve the highlights, the highlight reel from yesterday.

And so our job as leaders is to we never want to diminish or take away from the results that were created, but remind them that things are either growing or dying. And that's an immutable law of nature. You're either getting better or you're not. And I love that you won this award, and I love that you were great in 2019, but it's 2022, brother. What are we going to do today?

Well, it's the ability to get better, not just when you're at the top. Especially when you're at the top of your game. Right? Especially when you're at your best. So if I'm younger or I'm newer to the organization or newer to the industry, newer to this job position, I want to learn vicariously through those that are the MVPs that are the top performers. But I also know that I have a lot to offer. So how do I take that? How Do I take those lessons? How do I take that shared knowledge and apply it to my strengths and my skillsets?

Well, I think you start by you have to own that you have a responsibility to be your unique self. Okay? You were invited into this team because there was something about you that this culture needed. In the same way that what the Lakers needed was Magic Johnson's energy, his excitement. You have something that's unique that you are required to bring. We do not need you to be a clone of someone else that's already here.

So being really clear and having some self awareness about how you're uniquely you, how you celebrate that, and then take what you can learn, the craft, the skills, the experience of those that have come before you to make the entire team better, how do you transfer what your gifts are to those that are on the team and be a sponge to soak up all their unique gifts so that the total of the team gets better?

Right? Right. And you and I both know now, as a leader, as a coach, we need to make sure that we facilitate this happening too, that there's not resentment, that there's not hesitation, that there's acceptance and that there's psychological safety. How, as a coach, do you do that?

Well, I like to do it with this notion of a council. Okay. And so I create a council, which is a smaller cohort, a smaller sample size of the team that I get to pick. And it has nothing to do with title tenure. I might skip levels of the organization, but I'm going to pick four or five people. New, old, up and down the org chart. There's no rhyme or reason and their whole job is to tell me what I'm not hearing in the meetings. It's a safe space to say, nigel, did you know you can be this way sometimes and that's off putting to Sally? Or did you know that when you made this change to the comp plan, it was good for everybody except Joe, and Joe's resentful for it. You moved his cheese, so to speak.

And the council is a way for me to amplify and really shed light on my dark spots. Like, because look, we all make mistakes and we're not perfect, but it's a place for me to be vulnerable and say, here's what I'm concerned about. Or and conversely, for the team to say, Nigel, here's where you're being blind, here's where you're being ignorant. And I think leaders need to do that because you can't. It's hard to have you got a team of 20 for everybody to feel safe and equal and to just air the laundry. But you got to be able to identify the four or five people that you know you can trust that are going to tell you the whole truth.

And what does that do for them in return? Not only what it does for you, but what does that do for those folks that you chose to be on the counsel and they know that they can be open and transparent with you?

Well, it does a few things. I think it gives them a little more visibility to other things that are going on in the organization. It gives them a chance to lead and champion because they may get to champion a project. It also comes with some responsibility. They have to be trustworthy. They have to be. I have to be confident in them, meaning that they're not going to go and share information. They have to elevate their game. And so it's a little bit of a stretch assignment for them. And it makes them better in whatever they're doing in their normal role.

I know this. If I'm working for your organization, I want to be on your council, right? And I want to be on your council not because I get to complain and point out the negative things or to tell you what you're doing wrong as a leader, but to help you identify the gaps in where your strengths play into it. And I get to be a difference maker and become the MVP in my role. Is that what the whole thought process is?

And if I'm thinking I may want to get into leadership, it's a chance for me to test it. Right. I don't have to take the risk of leaving this job to go to your take on a new role without knowing what I'm really getting myself into.

So you just touched on something. We have a tendency probably because of lack of resources sometimes to reward salespeople who just kill it. Just crush the numbers, crush the metrics. Consistently with leadership roles when they are absolutely not prepared, no slight to them, no knock on them. They just haven't been trained, they haven't been developed, they haven't been nurtured, they haven't been mentored, they haven't been properly groomed to be leaders. What is your advice to them when you work with folks like that, an emerging leader, a rising coaching leader, what is your advice to them?

Well, is this really the right fit? Okay, Tom Brady, when he retires, is not going straight in to coaches neck to nose. He's going to take a stop in the booth. Not all top performers make great coaches. Bill Belichick the greatest in the game was a very forgettable football player and so was Pete Carroll, as well as.

A forgettable interview sometimes too.

Yeah. And Sean McVay, very forgettable at playing the game. So why is it that in the business world we think that our superstars are destined to be the coach of the team? There is no correlation between being a great producer, a great scorer and being a great coach. And so if you're listening to this and you're wondering why your top performer is struggling as a manager, they are fundamentally wired different. In fact, I'll tell you, most of the best managers, best leaders of sales teams were average sellers. Average. They consistently were at or just below or just above their quota. They were never quota busters. They just weren't.

And what about the glue person? Right. What about that person on the team that's always there for everybody else that keeps the team together, will set their stuff to the side and they'll help you when you're stuck on something. How great of a leader do they make?

They make great leaders. And that's why a lot of your average reps are average. Because they do things that top performers sometimes won't do. And that is go spend an entire day working with someone that's underperforming to help them or to work on a side project that makes the entire company better. Someone that's going to go 200% to plan and got all. It's just chasing a dollar sign. They can't be encumbered by some side project for the manager. We got to, I got a quote, I got to carry the team. I got to go score. I can't do that. And typically, a lot of top performers, they leave a wake of destruction behind them wherever they go.

They leave a mess for delivery, for product, for fulfillment, for the call center, for everybody in your organ, they're like, just get the deal done and everybody else sorted out. Average performers are a little bit more conscious of everyone else in the organization, generally speaking, and they're not going to do that to the rest of the business.

That's interesting because you point something out and I want to really jump into your work right now, but you point something out that 18 months or less is the average tenure of a sales leader. How much of that has to do with the fact you're constantly dealing with your top performers leaving a wake of a mess?

I think very little, honestly. I think most of the reason why the average tenure of a sales leader is 18 months has more to do with their inability to cast a Vision, which is what we talked about earlier, this further, faster to go, recruit teams based on the right values and to coach, train and develop people. I think that's why they are short for their post because they don't have the true skills of building and developing talent.

Now let me ask you this, is that because that's top down and that's the culture of the company. They're just doing things as it has been directed to them. Is it because they're ill equipped for their role? I mean, I have found working with some clients that there's absolutely people in those frontline leadership roles that are the coaching leaders that want to do this, that want to cast a vision, they want to communicate the vision consistently and they want to do things the right way. But their hands are tied. How do you see that?

I see it as a lot of CEOs and management teams are shortsighted. They're all driven by what we have to do this quarter from a revenue or an EBITDA perspective that they don't see the ROI on training, they don't see the ROI on culture. You can't make it look pretty in a spreadsheet and they've got investors and they've got pressure and everything in their mind is about delivering against that expectation. It's a short sighted way of thinking. And if you're willing to invest in the things, the intangibles and then it's the hard work, then the easy work of producing sales takes care of itself. You get the right people doing the right things at the right pace, sales is going to follow. And I think that we all just are wired for right now that we don't see the immediate return on it.

So we neglect it. And then we look up and it's been a year and now all of a sudden the management team's questioning do we even have the right coach? It's kind of like in the sports world you buy a championship through free agency and you're never going to build a dynasty. That's what happened.

We're going down that rabbit hole right now. It's the truth. And then who's the fall guy? It's the coach.

Coach?

Yeah. I mean it's the coach. I'm trying to adjust my attention right now because that is something. I was actually reading something about that this morning and I love when you talk about the word.

You.

You say this insufferable like it is absolutely insufferable for it to be that way. What's the first step in that situation when you identify the fact that, okay, we've done this the wrong way, like maybe there's something amiss here. We've got to regroup, we've got to circle the wagons and we've got to get back to doing things the right way.

Build a council, go to the front lines, go to every part of the organization and say, obviously, this isn't going the way we thought it was supposed to go. I'm here. There's no agenda other than you telling me what I need to hear. And you got to be willing to take it on the chin. That's the first thing you can do, is take it on the chin. And you know, look, it happens in sport, too, where all the talent in the world and you lost the game because of the coach. You got to help coach. We hear it all the time. Got out coach. Well, coaches and leaders, you got to be willing to go in and listen to your team and say, how do I get better as the coach?

Because who in the world wants to work for an organization that doesn't value everything that we're talking about today?

Well, and you and I both know this, the coaches that we played the hardest for, the ones that we left it all out there for intentionally, or the ones that never asked us to do anything that they weren't willing to do. And if you expect your people to reflect and adjust. Right. Why is a coach, won't you consistently work on working or work on growing? Excuse me.

And I'll say it in a similar way. The coaches that I remember, I couldn't even tell you. And it's not a knock on them. It just didn't matter. I can't tell you if they were really good X's and O coaches. I just couldn't tell you they cared. And no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. But yet in the business world, we spend more time reading industry reports and getting so smart on the competitive landscape and what's going on in the industry that we neglect the people that are going to get us there.

And that's the thing. If I know you care about me, I'm going to forgive you a little bit. If there's something as a leader that you mess up or you screw up or you misstep, it's okay. You've got my back, I've got yours.

That's right. So long as we're willing as leaders to own it, to say, guys, that's on me. That was no good.

And the unwillingness to own it does that Come from a place of fear that they could be let go, fear that they could be passed over, fear that their world could get real messy for a while, from the top. I mean, what is that? Like, why don't. What have you found that people have this objection to owning it?

Well, it does manifest in some of those scenarios that you pointed out. I think the real underlying issue is they're not very comfortable with themselves. They're not very comfortable and secure in their own position and their own value to the organization. To be able to own that, well, they're a human capable of making mistakes. And so really insecure leaders need to pass the buck. They need to be the smartest person. They need to be right. Really secure and confident leaders are able to go in and say, yeah, it's on me. I messed it up, but I probably won't next time. So let's learn from it, get better.

Let's segue into that. Let's talk about Revenue Harvest. You have this incredible book. I want to give you some time to talk about that, how you apply it in the work that you do with your clients and where it came from. When did you decide, I need to put this together. I need to write this, and I need to share. Share this. And what is really the foundational principles inside of that book.

Okay, so we talked about this a minute ago. 18 months is the average tenure of a sales leader. To me, that felt like, geez, what are we doing in this world if coaches are a revolving door in the business world? And I said, why is it I want to try to figure it out? And what I learned is that a lot of sales leaders, they fall victim to the mistakes that we talked about, and then they also look for quick fixes and gimmicks. And I said, what's the solution? And so I left Nashville in 2018 and moved to a farming community. And I started looking around these hardworking individuals, and I said, you know, this is. Farming is like sales, one of the oldest professions.

The difference, though, between farmers and sellers and sales leaders more specifically, is that if you don't produce a crop, there's no hay in the barn. You are not a farmer. And there are a lot of sales leaders that bounce from job to job, and they never put any hay in the barn. You can't do that as a farmer. I said, so how is it that these hard workers, since the beginning of humanity, have been subjected to so many things they can't control? They don't control the price of their crops. They don't Control the weather. It's too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry. And regardless of the growing season, one growing season, three growing seasons, they produce, you know, feast, famine. Yeah, there's all these things that are volatile, but they still get the work done.

And so I went and interviewed a bunch of farmers and I broke it down to seven principles that I felt like if sales leaders did these principles the same way farmers approach their growing year, if we approach our selling year in the same manner, we're going to be timeless, just like farmers. And so those principles are plan. You know, so the ability to put together a plan, good plans don't mean anything unless they're positioned well. So the second is positioning the plan well, meaning getting buy in from the team and those that support it and then prepare well. If you don't practice, if you don't train, then it won't amount to hill of beans. And then plant. Putting seeds in the ground, prospecting, you got to do that work, tend.

Just because we put seeds in the ground doesn't mean it's going to just magically grow. We got to go cultivate, we got to fertilize, you got to do the work of tending, then you get a harvest. And then the last, and I think the often most ignored principle in the business community is the restore. So farmers know that if I just grew corn on this piece of ground, I can't go back and just grow corn again. I've depleted the ground from the required minerals that I'm going to need to grow corn again. So I've got to grow something else that would restore the ground. It puts back in what was taken out. And we spend our entire selling year taking from our customers, taking from our salespeople, and we don't do anything to give back. And people say, well, we pay them well.

No, that was the deal. That was the contract. They're owed that. What are you doing to give back, to restore them back to their original use. And so that whole seventh principle is about creating space to make your customers and sales reps feel whole again before you go into the next selling year.

And how do you do that? How is it that last piece and you mentioned how we overlook it. How is it just something simple you can do to restore? I mean, I have like 30 things in my mind, but. But I'd love to hear what you talk about.

How about I'm going to give you 50% quota relief in a slow month, and you're going to spend two weeks to go work on Your craft, it's not rest, it's not go drink beer by the beach and no, no, it's go do work to make you better and to make you more fulfilled. Maybe one of the things I think about, a real life example I had, I love that I had a guy on my team that was just really going through, I was going through a divorce. He was really questioned a lot in his life and I just sent him away to a Tony Robbins. I said, I'm paying for you to go. I'm paying for the event. You're off the hook for work responsibilities. You're going to a Tony Robbins event for five days. And he came back a whole new person.

Yeah, man, I love that. So you're in charge of P and L. You're growing your career and you're crushing it and you recognize these things. How did you show an roi though on development and growth? How was it that you were able to sell that like what you just said? How are you able to sell the fact that you were going to take money out of your budget to send this guy tony Robbins because of something that was going on in his world away from the office?

Well, it's simple math. Okay? So I can either spend, I think at the 10 grand to go to the conference, another 5 grand and travel, so it's 15 grand, I can spend that on this individual to get them back or they're going to fail and then I'm going to have to replace them. So while they have failed, which means, so I've got to give, put him on a 90 day performance improvement plan, his production is going to decline. So there's going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Then when he fails, I have to go back to the market and I have to hire someone else. I'm going to have to hire a recruiter or use an internal recruiter that we pay full time and money to go find someone else.

I got to take my time away from coaching this team to go interview a bunch of people that I'm not going to hire. What's that going to cost? Then I have to go pull individuals out of the field. Once I've made a decision on who I'm going to hire, just give their time to train them, which means they're not working in their territories. What's that cost? And then you very quickly get to about $200,000 to replace this person versus just $15,000 to go and make them better.

And now I'm your boss and I say Nigel, that's great. I love how you laid that out there for me. But how do you know it's going to work?

I don't know it's going to work.

I don't.

It is a hedge. I am de risking the business because I know if I don't do something, if I don't intervene, I know how this movie ends, but I don't know it's going to work.

I love that. And by the way, boss, if you trust me, which you obviously do, because I'm in this position to lead this team and you want me to trust my gut and make a call, this is what I'm doing. And I just explained what the outcome will definitely be if I don't do this.

And then leaders, like. So then you think about that. Like my boss. Right. So I was privileged to work for some leaders that just said, nigel, you run the P and L. I don't get into the P and L. And so if you're listening to this and you find yourself rolling your eyes or wanting to get inquisitive about a leader that's doing things like this, I'll challenge you to say, if that person's hitting their P and L requirements, how do you care how they're spending it? All you care about is that they are hitting the revenue number at the expense budget you gave them. Give them autonomy to do it. Don't. Don't tell them you have P and L responsibility and then go tell them how to direct their P and L. Let them do it and hold them accountable for the results.

And isn't our P and L? Isn't. Isn't our success and our outcomes a byproduct of the process and byproduct of the way we do things and byproduct of the behaviors that we're able to drive with our people?

I think so, yeah.

Let's. Before, as we start to run short on time here, I want to make sure that we discuss what is it exactly, the work that you do right now, all this experience, this wealth of knowledge, this wealth experience that you took from your time in the healthcare industry, in the business world, and now you're applying it into your work. Now what is it that you're doing?

So primarily what I do is I'm involved in four healthcare companies. One, Affirm Health, I'm involved in pretty extensively. I run a consultancy where I work with leaders of sales teams that want to get better. And so if you're listening to this, you're like, I need a little Bit of Nigel in my life. Well, here's how I can help you. I've got a workshop product that I do one or two a month where I come in and I will work alongside you, the leader, to audit everything in your sales organization. People, process, technology, culture. And I'm going to show you how you can double your sales by working on the seven principles of the book, how you can apply them to your business.

And you're going to go further, faster just by doing that diligence work that culminates in a one day workshop with me where you can hire me as a coach. So I take on a limited number of sales leaders and a one year commitment to come alongside, be an extra set of eyes and ears. I work for you get me and I help you get better at your craft. Those are the two ways that the work that I'm doing now is probably most applicable to anyone listening to this.

And Nigel, I love what I hear. I want to find out more about you. I want to reach out, I want to connect. How can I do that?

Easy. LinkedIn. I'm there. You send me a message, I'll respond. If you want to read the book, you can buy it from Amazon or wherever you get your books or you can go to therevenueharvest.com, spend five bucks and I'll give you the e book and the audiobook for five bucks. I mean, it's best deal in town.

It is the best deal in town. And you know, we'll have links for all of that in our show notes. And Nigel, I can't thank you enough. I mean, we can keep talking for hours. Matter of fact, I'm going to beg you to get back on because there's so much more we could talk about.

Let's do it again.

Hey, Nigel, thank you so much. And again, everything will be in the show notes, including the link to the book Win forever. Great book. Let me ask you this before we end it, what was your biggest takeaway from that book? Win Forever.

Just to have a mantra. Just to have like if you go in and look at the book, he visualizes it. So having a mantra that drives a visual set of standards and that's the biggest takeaway. And everywhere I go we do that. We have a, an overarching vision statement and then we have standards that are visible and they're everywhere. For you to see them, even in a virtual world, you get them.

Yeah, you do. And thinking about Coach Carroll, thinking about the situation he's in right now, how long he's been there and win forever. I'm amazed at his resiliency and how he's still showing up with all the things that have happened to that franchise, to the league, to just what we've lived through, what we've grown through the last couple of years. Can you speak to that for a second before we wrap this up? How significant of a lesson there is inside of that?

I don't know Pete, I haven't met Pete. You know what I know about him as a guy that when he was in LA coaching at usc, that was showing up, doing work with kids in the inner city. He sees football as a tool. And that's what. It's a tool to do something bigger. It's a tool to have a bigger impact. That football is not the point. Football is just a tool for him.

Well, I'll tell you what, your coaches did well, because you are. You're making a huge impact. And I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to join us here on the podcast.

Ed, it's been my pleasure. Thank you so much for what you do.

Thank you for listening to the athletics of business. Be sure to give us a rating and review so we know how we're doing. For more information about the show, visit theathleticsofbusiness.com now get out there. Think, act and execute at the highest level to unleash your greatness.