This episode of the Grow Fast Podcast featuring Amy Evans, Fractional CRO and Host of the Women in Sales Leadership Podcast, primarily focused on the importance of building high-trust teams and fostering motivation within sales organizations. Amy shared her leadership journey, highlighting how vulnerability and genuine connections with team members are critical for creating a supportive and high-performing environment. She emphasized the value of trust-building exercises, like life story mapping, to develop deeper relationships among team members and encourage collaboration. Amy also shared her transition into leadership roles, detailing the lessons she learned, such as setting boundaries and earning respect, while navigating the challenges of managing peers as a leader.
Another key topic was the significance of empowering teams and fostering a sense of ownership. Amy discussed how she involved her team in decision-making processes to generate innovative ideas and train future leaders. She also emphasized the importance of encouraging individual motivation and celebrating small wins, such as securing key meetings, to maintain morale and drive progress. Additionally, Amy shared insights into her fractional CRO role, explaining how she collaborates with multiple organizations to design actionable go-to-market strategies, ensuring scalability and credibility with both customers and investors. Her approach highlights the importance of balancing strategic leadership with the flexibility to adapt to diverse organizational needs.
You can find the whole episode of the Grow Fast Podcast with Amy Evans here:
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This is the transcript for this episode:
Mark Shriner [00:00]
Welcome to The Grow Fast Podcast where we talk with leading sales, marketing and personal growth experts about how companies can accelerate sales, optimize marketing, and grow their businesses fast. Let's go.
Mark Shriner [00:15]
Hey Amy. How are you?
Amy Evans [00:16]
I'm fantastic, Mark. It's good to be with you today.
Mark Shriner [00:20]
Likewise! I'm sitting here looking out my window, and there's snow in the mountains, and it's 38 degrees outside, Fahrenheit. If anybody from non-American audience is listening, where are you at and how's the weather right now?
Amy Evans [00:35]
Yes. So, I'm in beautiful Atlanta, Georgia, and it is finally beginning to feel like winter may be coming today, it is wintery, with a little bit of soggy rain and threatening of lower temperatures coming up soon. So, we're going to say lower temperatures.
Mark Shriner [00:56]
What do you mean by lower temperatures? Because you know, to me, 39 that's getting pretty low. But what are you at?
Amy Evans [00:35]
Yeah, yeah. Well, we, we've had super unusual weather. Uh, meeting has been like in the 70s for the past four weeks, yeah.
Mark Shriner [01:13]
I’m on my way?
Amy Evans [00:14]
Right, But yeah! It's about to become like in the 50s, which is more normal for this time of year here, you know, sweater weather, get your fire going, all that fun stuff.
Mark Shriner [01:26]
50 sounds so cozy to me right now. That's awesome.
Amy Evans [01:30]
I hear you.
Mark Shriner [01:31]
Yeah. Well, hey, you know, I'm really looking forward to talking to you. You've got a tremendous amount of experience in sales and leading sales teams, and I want to talk to you about building high trust teams and why that's important. Also, I want to talk about, you know, the role that motivation plays in both individuals and in teams, in terms of, you know, staying focused and staying motivated. But before we do that, could you maybe talk a little bit about you know, you've worked in high role, profile positions with companies like ADP and Salesforce. And you know, I'm sure you probably also have some work as an individual contributor. Now you're working as a fractional CRO. So can you talk a little bit about your background and why you decided to move more into a into like a fractional CRO type of situation.
Amy Evans [02:22]
Sure, yeah, and thanks for the chance to tell my story, Mark. So, yeah. So, you know, I've spent, I can't believe it, almost 25 years in technology sales. And just like most every good salesperson and leader, I came into sales by accident. I feel like sales found to me. So, you know, I went from being a pre-med major at the University of Wyoming to deciding to scrap that idea because I could not stomach the thought of however many more years of school, and I don't know whatever small fortune I was going to spend on grad school for med school. And I said, you know what? I'm going to move to Atlanta. I had a job with a nonprofit. It said it was in marketing, but let's face it, it was in sales. So, I started my career there. And after and along the way, I found myself in some really, I got lucky. A lot of times I just put my head down. I worked hard, and it turned out that against, you know, kind of, all odds and my own desire, I happened to be talented at selling. And when I was growing up in my selling career, I found myself naturally pulled into leadership. I was constantly coaching and helping support my teammates around me, and I got my first former formal leadership role at a company called one source virtual, which was a workday partner. So that began my leadership journey about 10 years ago, and I kept growing into bigger and bigger responsibility, more and more revenue, making a ton of mistakes along the way, because just like most sales leaders in their journey, I didn't have a lot of training. I just was kind of thrown in the deep end and figured it out.
Mark Shriner [04:12]
It's funny, because a lot of times the selection process for a sales leader is, oh, they're a successful salesperson. And oftentimes the traits that make somebody a very successful lone wolf salesperson are almost the opposite traits you need to be a sales leader. So, and I've seen it time and time again, where, just as you said, people are selected and then thrown into the spot without really any real formal training.
Amy Evans [04:39]
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's still happening yet today, you know? And some of it is that there's an element of don't know what you don't know. Since nobody received training, usually as a sales leader, they don't know how to create it for others. And so, you learn the hard way, which is. What I did, and I in that, in that journey, I think one of the things that I really arrived at was my own leadership style, my own leadership philosophy and what works for me and what doesn't work for me. And I would really say that the biggest thing that does work for me is just being myself, right? And that's just so basic. But when you're learning how to do something, it's so natural and normal to try to model what you're doing off of somebody else that you've seen do it. And that can work for a while. To kind of get some basics down, you've got to always sprinkle in, like, your own style and your own approach, and that's what I attribute my success to. Like things really kind of turned a corner for me in my leadership when I first became a leader, when I decided I wanted to be the leader that I always wanted to have, and..
Mark Shriner [05:58]
So, let's talk about that was like, you know, talk about a couple of the mistakes you made when you were making that transition into a leadership role. And then talk about how, you know, you were able to take a step back and say, those are mistakes. I want to do it my way. And then talk about some of the things that you started to do to make it yours.
Amy Evans [06:18]
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think one of the first mistakes I made was, you know, typically, like most sales leaders, and I was no exception. I was promoted to take over a team of my peers. And I think one of the early mistakes, the first mistakes I made, was not really setting the boundaries clearly enough about the fact that, you know, yes, i Yes, I always supported them and cared about them as individuals, and that would never change. However, I now had a bigger responsibility to not be their buddy, and not just that. We couldn't be friendly, but I had to be able to make decisions and sometimes unpopular ones, and have my team understand that, and most importantly, I had to earn their respect. I think one of the things that I first made a mistake on was believing that, you know, just because I had the title, that that somehow permitted me to have access to people's respect without earning it first. And, I mean, I did some dumb stuff. I know, I kind of, I micromanaged people, right? I did some of these, like completely normal mistakes that first time leaders make.
Mark Shriner [07:33]
I’m a manager now I got to do management stuff. And so, where's those TPS reports, you know, right? Amy Evans [07:38]
How am I going to add value? Right, how am I going to add value? I mean, I will never forget I was with this absolute rock star of a sales woman who was that one of the top performers, top earners at the company when I first began leading and she's she was taking over my old territory, and we go into these sales calls together, and she's new to the company, and so I'm helping her learn training, feeling like I'm doing such a great job training her. And we get out of probably would have been maybe our fourth or fifth prospect call after she'd been with the company for a couple months. And we walked out of the meeting, she looked at me. She said, "I thought you told me you were going to let me lead the meeting." And I was like, oh, aw, I did that, didn't I? And she said, Yeah, you did. And I said, okay, thanks for telling me, right, like those things.
Mark Shriner [08:29]
It's, you know, a completely human kind of reaction, because I think we've all been there, where, we want everything to be perfect in front of the customer. And you know what? You know, you've been down this, had this conversation, you know, for years, and so you naturally, you just take the lead. But oh, salespeople like to have autonomy, and they like to happen to be the leader, right? So that's it's hard to step back, but it's really nice that she felt comfortable enough to tell you.
Amy Evans [08:56]
Well, that says more about her than it did about me, I think I, you know, at the time, so, you know, the one thing that I'll, I'll say, is that I think, I think for leaders, is like figuring out, how do you drive value in, in everything that you do, and specifically when you're engaging with prospects. Because, you know, I grew up in ADP where, you know, we were, it was really kind of an expectation that if you brought a leader in, they kind of frowned on it, you know, like they thought, what, you can't close the deal yourself. It was weird. And this might have just been old school culture that was still kind of ring, you know, hanging around. I'm sure things have majorly changed in the many years since I've been there, but that was kind of the attitude at the time. And also, we as sales reps, you sort of definitely had this fear that we brought our leaders, and they were going to mess up the deal for us. Because some of us had horror stories of that happening, and so some of it was just like figuring out, like, what's my role here, and how to how to step into that role. And I think that's one of the things that as a sales NEW. Sales leader that nobody really probably talks about much. They talk about all these glossy business book topics. They don't talk about the things that really matter, like how what's your role you're going to play in the sales call? Right?
Mark Shriner [10:19]
Yeah. And so, you made that transition. So, what, what areas do you find that you can bring value in a sales call?
Amy Evans [10:27]
Well, I think the one of the main things is typically being, not being a little bit removed from the day to day on a sales process helps me a lot, because that just gives me a little better perspective. I'm not so close, believe it or not, and this kind of floored me. I'm like, hey, I'm the same person, but folks like to talk to people who have a higher up title, makes them feel that we care more. And so just by nature of having a authority by title, oftentimes, I can bridge a gap in relationship and connection with the person on the other side of the table from a just a shared understanding and a respective leadership of, hey, we both are running businesses here, and the credibility of how long we've been doing these things together, really, I think kind of lends, can lend to a better trust in the conversation. So, you know, when I think about my role, it's to, number one, help them with strategy and help them see things they're not seeing, and number two, on the customer side, be a sponsor for the customer, and really act as a buck stops with me, kind of leader for them where, you know, they have my cell phone. It's my personal cell phone and It is my work cell phone. People would probably tell me that that's not healthy balance, but it's worked for me for all this time. So, I'm sticking with it, and I've given it, I've given it to my customers. I've given it to leaders. And you know what? There's been times when they had to call me, and I was so glad they did, because I was the one that dealt with the problems instead of the sales, my sales individual contributor, my sales rep, because I want my sales rep out there selling, if there's a problem because of, I don't know, insert customer service, whatever we screwed up on our on something, I'll deal with that. And I'll growl at my leaders to take care of that. And I see that as part of my role is to help fix those kinds of things, especially when it gets escalated to me by the customer.
Mark Shriner [12:49]
Totally agree. I the best boss I ever had, was the CEO of a company. I was reporting to her, and she had this policy, Mark. She was pretty high profile in that industry, she said, she said, just use me to get access to whoever you want to talk to, and I will be there in person or virtually or whatever you need. I'll do that. And then the other thing that she would do is, what resources do you need to be successful? She’s very, very little sales coaching. I mean, it was basically, I'm a resource. She was a resource for me and our team, right? Because it was a regional team, and she just, you know, she didn't matter who in our prospect or customer we were meeting with if we wanted her to be involved. Because a lot of times you, like you said, the prospects or customers, they feel good to meet somebody who has a little more authority, they feel like, hey, you're, you know, you are respecting or appreciating this opportunity. You're taking it seriously. And it didn't matter how big the deal was, who, whatever she just was very, very supportive of the entire team, which is, it was huge. And I learned a lot from that as well.
Amy Evans [14:02]
Yeah, well, look, I'm always interested in empowering my team. I'm not there to do their work for them. That takes away from them and their growth and their experience and their contribution. But there's certain things they do acknowledge that it's, it's better if I do it. And, you know, oh my gosh. I think one of the things I see a lot of this on LinkedIn, everybody's talking about cold email all the time, which kind of cracks me up. I'm like, we, they act like this is new. We've been selling this way for forever, but, but what we but what I got good at doing for my teams and with my teams and giving them access, would I'd say, No, hey, if there's a leader that we're trying to get a meeting with, write the email for me. I'll write the old ghost email, a tactic, you know, write the email for me. Give me everything I need to send this email on your behalf. I'll tweak it. I'll make it mine. And I'll reach out on LinkedIn. I'll, you know, I'll do, I'll do as many touches as you would do getting a hold of this individual. And I tell you what, and it's not because I had some kind of special sauce Mark. I'm sure it works. That works in your world, too. I was able to get the meetings 99% of the time. You know?
Mark Shriner [15:22]
That's awesome. That's awesome, yeah, yeah!
Amy Evans [15:24]
And not because I'm, I'm super special. It's just, you know that that extra level of hey, you know, I don't care that we're this is a relatively small deal for my company. This rep is trying to make a quota this month. And I'm about this individual success, I'm about the team's success, and I'm not above calling anybody, anywhere, at any time to do it help in any way I can.
Mark Shriner [15:51]
Yeah, that's awesome. Let me ask you, though. I mean, sometimes when you're leading a team, though, you could have issues. Okay, you know, not just that they require your support, but maybe, maybe you're in a meeting and you see, hey, you know what? Maybe there's a different way of handling that. Maybe, you know it's so sometimes you do need to do a little bit of coaching, right? And then sometimes the coaching is accepted and well received, and sometimes it's not. And maybe the performance isn't where it needs to be, and you need to kind of help them figure out, how are they going to get back on target, or if they are going to get back on target? So, let's talk about this. When you, when you spot an area for improvement, how do you, how do you put your coach hat on and deal with that? And then, if there is no improvement or the performance is lacking. How do you kind of manage that process? Because that's all important too, right?
Amy Evans [16:47]
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to go back a little bit mark, because you started, you opened with high trust teams so nobody will hear words you say if they don't believe that you care about them. So whether that's good or bad or neutral, the I really aimed to earn the trust of every individual on my team, and one of the ways that I evolved my leadership as I got greater span of control, because when I left Salesforce, I was running a $200 million customer portfolio, responsible for $35 million revenue add ARR each year, customer retention numbers that were, you know, huge high, and a team of about, you know, 40 to 50 individual sellers, and a leadership team of six direct Reports. So, what I what I did with my directs in regard to performance, is I started where you begin, which was I got to know each of my I made it a point, and it was my business to get to know each of my directs individually. So, I actually got an exercise that is super anybody could do it that helps build trust. It takes two hours, a Zoom account, or whatever your video call of choice is, and a blank sheet of paper. And the exercise is you get on the meeting with everybody. You tell them what it's going to be. It's going to be a team building. And what we're going to do is have a chance to learn about each other. And on the blank sheet of paper, you take 15 minutes, or 10, or however long it takes everybody to complete. And the idea is that you draw a map of your life, in your experiences, the main experiences of your life from you know, where you're born, where you grew up, where you went to school, and all the things that kind of happened along the way, the major events that happened along the way that brought you to where you are today. And I'll never forget doing this with my team for the very first time. And you know, I was excited about it, and then when I started doing it, I got really nervous, Mark, And it came time to and it wouldn't surprise you, like it was a small enough group on my team where we could go, we could share with the with the group. You know, then you, when you write out in your map, you turn around, you share your story with everybody on the call, and you can share to the level of comfort that you have of sharing, right? Well, I was with Salesforce, and they are sharers there. Okay, so even in the sales team, these are hardnosed A players like you know, group presidents, club leaderboard people and they shared, they shared these stories of triumph and setback and resilience and heartbreak and grief and illness and just all these things they would never know about somebody if you didn't have, like, years maybe to get to know them in two hours, we learned about each other, and I'll never forget when I had to tell my mind, I was like, oh, suddenly it was sweating. I was hot, I was nervous. It was like, I had to get really vulnerable with my team and, like, really share who I was with them. And you know what? That's exactly what they wanted from it. So, that practice became standard practice on my teams, and so my leaders did it with their teams. I did skipped levels to once a quarter with every individual seller on my team. So, the goal for me was, you know, I can only manage and lead these folks if they knew that. I knew who they were. I knew what their life was about. I knew what their personal goals were, and I knew what their professional goals were. So, when you start from that basis and it requires a ton of effort to do it. The lazy thing to do is to just jump right in and say, hey, we're running a sales number and assume that everybody's like on board with it. It takes more time, but that time you spend at the beginning saves you time later, because when it comes time for a coaching call to happen or performance issues to be addressed. You know the conversation looks like you know me speaking with the individual and saying to you, hey, Mark, this last quarter was a goose egg for you. I know that's not what you want. I know that's not what you're about. That's not what you told me when we met two months ago. What have you? What's going on in you, in your life what's happening, right? And I would learn what's going on. There's either something, there's not something, and there's sometimes it's just not a right fit for folks, and that's totally cool, right? Like, hey, not everybody wants to hang around whatever job they're in for forever. Maybe, you know, they're just not feeling it, and so it's time to move on. But I find, you know, coaching begins with relationships and then, and then the favorite thing I like to do is, you know, when I see something that needs to be corrected, like, I don't mess around, I do it right away. I used to mess around when I was younger. I don't do that anymore. So don't wait. I'm not afraid. Because the way I've learned to view, view feedback is it's it really, they people say it's a gift. It's only a gift if it's really coming from the heart, but it's a gift if you're the reason you're sharing it is that you genuinely care about this person, you care about the results for the team, and you're trying to help them be a better player, a better crafts person at what they're doing. And so, I would give my feedback right when, and if folks didn't want to correct it, or they didn't want to hear it, then we were having a different kind of conversation. And that's the way it would position it with them. You know, anybody can screw up once. Anybody can even screw up twice if you get to a third screw up, because I don't, I don't even think, you know, it's a one strike and you're out, because that's not what life is like. But if you get to where somebody keeps making the same mistake over and over again, then you're having a hey, this can't this doesn't work, folks, this. This is not serving you. It's not serving the team, and we got to do something about it.
Mark Shriner [23:06]
Well, I like the fact what you talked about is building that relationship first, so that it's easier to have those conversations, and the the communications would seem to be much more sincere. I, oftentimes would give feedback and say, would it be okay if I shared my observations or some ideas with you? And then and I have, and basically, I'll bundle them into two types of observations, which you can take or leave. It is just, you know, because I can't change who you are, how you are, what you do. I don't want to. I want you to be you, but this is just my thought, okay? But then there are some observations where I'm like, no, from now on, you know, you're not going to say this in front of a customer. Okay? We're not going to, we are not going to apologize our way out of you know, no, we're going to sell to our students, you know, whatever the example is right, but there are some that take it or leave it. This is just, you know, and then if you have observations that you'd like to share with me, that's awesome as well, but some of them, you're going to have to make this change. And usually, usually that works. But I'm wondering, though, if we go back to the initial trust building exercise, and I mean, I was feeling vulnerable, like listening to you prepare for that, and I was thinking, like, if I did that, how deep would I go? Because in order for it to be, I guess, valuable, I have to, I have to be somewhat vulnerable and I'm wondering, and I've never asked this of anybody before, but since you do a podcast on women in sales leadership, let me ask you, do you think it's easier for or I wouldn't say easier, or is it more common or for a woman to lead that type of exercise compared to a man?
Amy Evans [24:58]
I couldn't?
Mark Shriner [25:01]
Specifically talking about the vulnerability and communicating about our personal lives, you know.
Amy Evans [25:04]
Yeah, yeah. I mean the data. The data is out there, Mark, with regard to vulnerability and his connection to leadership and trust, you know, Brene Brown has written extensively on the topic. So, you know, I don't know I was, I was probably the only leader on my team to do that exercise. I talked about it with everybody. And then what was fascinating to me was half of my team were men. Actually, on that team. It was three men and a female and lady, and the men, the men all jumped right on board and, like, did this exercise with their teams after we did it together.
Mark Shriner [25:45]
Oh, they did it with their, okay. So, I was thinking, because it's the dynamics different if they're just doing it with you, but if they turn around and did it with their team, same exact dynamic, yeah.
Amy Evans [25:52]
It is. It is. And so, I think, I think, um, no, I'm not sure. I can't really comment. Like, was it easier? I was scared out of my wits, because I'll tell you, one of the challenges of being a woman in leadership is that, you know, we've got to be better than the men are. Always have to outperform. Does not just perform. Performing does not good enough. And that's how we all see it. We see ourselves as having to, like, do better than the guys, because that's kind of been our life experience of getting to this point. It is like, how we got here, is that we were, we really were better. And so, this, like, the standards we hold ourselves to are crazy high. And then what's worse is the tendency for women in leadership, is like, showing emotion or weakness has been completely like, trained out of us as, like, don't ever do that, because then you're going to get labeled of, oh, she's just an emotional woman. And you know, whatever other ugly things people want to say that are tied to showing your emotions. Well, I tell you, some of the best and most passionate leaders that I've known are men, and they like wear their hearts on their sleeves, and their teams will run through freaking walls for them. And you know, that's, I think that's and it's not about the leader, but it becomes about the bonding of the team, and that's what I really cared about. What was this something I never anticipated, because this became a process that I never I've never failed to run anytime I had a new team or a new member of the team, like, we did this exercise together, and
Mark Shriner [27:34]
I think it'd be a great exercise to do with anybody. I mean, like, let's cut through all the small talk and the chit chat. Let's get to know each other.
Amy Evans [27:45]
Yeah, really. I mean, and again, it's so what I what I found, though, was so fascinating. As my team got larger, I could be in less places when I had six directs and I had a bigger business. And so, what happened were these leaders were so bonded to each other, and they'd only probably met physically twice, but we did this exercise together, and they, like, knew each other's life story, and it, it created this, like, willingness to help each other out. I'd never seen anything like this before in my life. Mark these, these leaders would be like, hey, I can't be on this sales call. Can you cover this for me? Do you know what? There wasn't a discussion about a split. All right, nobody was in it for me. What's in it for me? It's like no man. We're all on the same team here, on the same team. They all cared about each other, and there was nobody taking advantage of anybody else. Know the end of the quarter would come, and they would they decided to host, they decided to host office hours for the sellers who were new, where, you know, every day, at four o'clock a leader would be on the call, and they a seller could hop on and get any question answered or help needed With pricing, proposal, sales, ops, deal, desk, review, blah, blah, blah, all the things that big software organizations have that are called sales prevention departments, right? My leaders did that for each other. That wasn't my idea.
Mark Shriner [29:14]
That's amazing. Well, I mean, God, that sounds like a really great team to be working with.
Amy Evans [29:20]
I had a lot of great teams. They were one of them.
Mark Shriner [29:24]
So talk to talk a little bit more about some other things that you can do, not just as the leader, but maybe in terms of the team dynamic, in terms of, I mean, so that they can spontaneously come up and say, Hey, we're going to have office hours, things like that. What can you do to kind of foster that environment of sharing.
Amy Evans [29:41]
Well, I think one of the things is that I never try to show up with all the answers ever. And most of the best ideas come from other brains, not mine. You know, one of the skillsets I do bring to the table is I can spot people's talents and gifts, and I kind of know who's good at what. What and who to go to for when I have that many of all the many things I don't do so well. But when you know one of the things that I would do, you know I met with. We had a regular team, every week, call, and we had, actually, we too. So, I remember being annoyed at this, but I hate internal meetings, but you have to have them. So, we had to have a forecast call. We had a forecast call, and then we had a leadership call. And the leadership calls where we discuss, like new programs, issues, problems, how are we going to solve this? How are we going to solve this, we don't have enough pipelines for next quarter? What are we going to do about it? Right? We would discuss these items together, and they were discussions. They weren't edicts for me, and I looked to my team, I would say, Look, guys, we can either have me dictate the answer, or you guys come up with some ideas, and we figure out which idea we like the best and go for it, right? So, I train. I got them in the habit of showing up with ideas, and they got experience, then being in my shoes, which is exactly the training they wanted. They wanted to know how to get to the second leader level and to have that experience. And so, no, I developed those kinds of things. I just listened, I asked questions, and I listened, and I nine times out of 10. It was their ideas that were running our business, not mine, because they were close to the street.
Mark Shriner [31:30]
Yeah, and oftentimes, you're right though, that people will go to a leader. It doesn't have to be just in sales, it could be in any role. And they'll go to the leader and say, have this problem. What should I do? But I think a more successful approach is, what you just talked about, more sustainable, is say, come to me with your problems, but also come to me with your ideas. Let's work this through. Because, and I've been in organizations where people, it took them a while, it took them three or four times through that where they'd show up and I or another leader would say, so what would you do? What's your plan? And then they like, wow, I can, I can be empowered to kind of like, help solve these problems. And it's, it's a massive kind of accelerant in the team, if you've got 10 people thinking versus one person like you said, they're on the front lines. They're closer to the problem oftentimes.
Amy Evans [32:25]
Yeah, the last thing I'll offer on that one mark is that I really tried often to be the last one to speak.
Mark Shriner [32:32]
That's hard for me.
Amy Evans [32:36]
It's hard for everybody. It's hard for everybody.
Mark Shriner [32:38]
Too much coffee. I'm just like, hey!
Amy Evans [32:41]
Look, when I ask a question, right? I try to really reserve any comment or, you know, my feedback until, like everybody has spoken, and I've even done such things as, and I hate I do this. I got from a Brene Brown podcast that she did where it was a question, and I, we were in a team, and we were trying to decide. We actually were trying to decide which, which 10 accounts we were going to place. We called our big bets, and on those big bets' accounts, they got a ton more resources than the rest of them did, because we expected a huge return on those resources every year. And so, we had kind of a pitch off of the sellers that would come and pitch each account to us, to the leaders and you know, some of my strategy team on which ones should qualify. And it was kind of, so we had, we'd sit there after the pitch off, and we all have ideas. And so, what I chose to do to try to help the decision making so I didn't influence it too much was I had everybody that was on the voting committee with me. I said, all right, we're going to secret ballot. You're going to write, sit down right now and write down, what are your top two independently, right? They couldn't hear anybody else's answer. And this is so simple stuff, and then, and then they and then we shared what we each thought, so that there just wasn't this group influence on the discussion. And that's when I stole just straight from a Brene Brown podcast.
Mark Shriner [34:15]
It's awesome, yeah, because a lot of times people will follow the the cue of the leader. And if the leader is like, I think we should, and then it's like, well, I'm not going to go against that. I'm not going to fight that battle.
Amy Evans [32:26]
Somebody's whoever speaks the loudest, whoever speaks first, and not necessarily the loudest in the first speaker, is the best idea.
Mark Shriner [34:35]
Totally agree. Talked about motivation. Because, okay, there's, you know, we're all human beings. We've got, I would say, kind of a, finite amount of motivation and energy and selling. You know, you're probably going to get more no's than you're going to get yeses. So, you could be an individual producer or frontline part of a team, but you know, you need to. You need to stay motivated, and work through all the challenges. Talk a little bit about some if you do any coaching related to that, but also in your role as a leader, you know you have to maintain that kind of your What did they call that? The separation of you mentioned it earlier. You can't really be their friend. You're their leader, but not a friend, and sometimes that can be a little bit lonely, and so talk about the individual, the motivation for individual producers or and then later for leaders. How do you stay motivated?
Amy Evans [35:37]
So you know, motivation is an internal job, self job. But there's, there's, I would call, I think the role of leaders that people don't necessarily talk about anymore is actually encouragement and believing, believing in the team, believing in the individual. And you know, everybody's going to have a bad day, they're going to have a bad week. They could have a bad month, or bad quarter, bad year. Show me somebody who's been selling long enough they've had a terrible year, and they could be a top performing President's Club, you know, w2 off the charts, type of person. It'll happen. It'll happen. And I think what, what the thing is about motivation for me is number one, I always well, what I learned later in my leadership is that I can't motivate anybody. They have to motivate themselves and but what I can do is remind them about what they say they want and who they say they are, and help them get perspective on that when they're feeling, you know, discouraged or down, which is inevitable, it's going to happen. You know, I do. I do work hard to know when things are happening in my business. Like again, I can't be everywhere all the time. I knew when the presentations were happening. And I wasn't necessarily in the room, but you bet I was firing off a text or a Slack message to the salesperson and the leader separately, saying you're going to nail it today. You've got this, you know, you're, you have, you have prepared you are going to hit this out of the park right to just people. I had a couple leaders that did that for me, and it is so funny. You know, we are so strong and so powerful and so accomplished and so high performing, but, oh my goodness, don't we all need a little bit of encouragement and somebody believing in us and reminding us how awesome we are, right? Absolutely, yeah, I mean that that's, you know, that that's, that's a lot of that. And then, you know, I communicated regularly with my teams, and I acknowledged wins a ton, like there is just, there is never enough acknowledgement for success, in my mind. I mean, thus the getting the meeting with the person you've been trying to get a meeting with for six months should be shouted from the rooftops, just as big as the, you know, the contract getting signed, right? That is, that is where the real work, it's like nobody sees that's that's really challenging in the in this kind of work. And then, you know, when I think about my own motivation, you know, you know what, I have crummy days too. There are days I don't feel like doing it either. And you know, the choices are kind of depends on what's on my schedule, like, and what's going on in my life. Like, there are times when, if I'm feeling really, really awful, I feel like it's my body telling me that I have to take a break and my mind telling me have to take a break. And so, you know, what I used to do was never take a break and just power through it and then be a grumpy jerk right in there. Done that. Yeah, right, that. Nobody wants to be around um, including me and but if, but, you know, I work hard now at um, managing my energy and managing my motivation. I follow a lot of different practices that help me do that. You know, I I exercise every other day. That's like a commitment. I have to myself. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do a hardcore workout every other day. And then the days I'm not doing a hardcore workout, I'm at least going for a walk, or I'm doing yoga or stretching or something I meditate for I mean, it probably ends up being an hour every day, because I do like 10 minutes in the morning, and then I usually take a break in the afternoon, around 2:30 or 3:00, and I lay down on the couch, and I have this app that I use, and I put on a 30 minute meditation and that slow down. It allows me to come back for another two or three hours and be fully charged up and ready to rock again. I used to work through that stuff, and then I'd be so depleted at the end of the day, and, you know, grumpy and unhappy, and I could, you know, you find a way to recharge one way or the other, whether it's healthy or not. And so for my that's like, I think to me, motivation is about creating habits of performance and then reminding myself, you know, I do have a journal somewhere over here where it's like a hard copy thing, where I've written down with these are my goals for the year. This is what I'm up to in every area of my life, and this is the progress that I want to make in the next three months, toward that I didn't make this step up. It's a journal that I bought, and a coach that I hired sent me the journal. So right? I just decided to use the tool I was given, and it's working for me. So, to me, it's that. And then, you know, reminding myself about, you know, what, what's my life about? Who am I? I'm about making a difference. My values are integrity, growth and joy, and I got to be doing things that fulfill that with for me, all day, every day, and on the days that I don't do it, then I got to figure out how to adjust the next day, I can make more progress toward integrity, growth and joy, yeah.
Mark Shriner [41:28]
Wow. I think that's some amazing advice. Back to the beginning, recognition is so important for people who, like you said, just even just getting the meeting or deals, one sharing the success stories. You know, how did you do it? To walk the team through it. You know, from the initial contact, let's go through this. And then, you know, most people really like to share those, those wins, and it gives them recognition, encouragement. It also, you know, helps educate, or it helps the other team members understand maybe different things that they might be able to do. And then I really like what you said about motivation being tied to energy levels. It's so funny, like I can never be a venture capitalist because I am too optimistic. I would invest in everything. I think everything's going to be amazing, right? And I'm just like, way, just hopeless optimistic, hopelessly optimistic, almost in everything. But there'll be days where I'll be just like, oh, it's not going to work. This is no good. And I'm like, what is going on? Why am like this? And then I realized I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted. I got three hours of sleep. I've been doing that for two or three days in a row. I'm not eating right, not getting exercise. Something's missing there. And then I got to take a step back and say, okay, this is not real. These are just my feelings are real, but the thoughts that are interpreting these feelings, okay, I need to kind of think about this, recognize that get the rest, eat right, do the exercise. It's amazing. You know, I can, I can turn it around, typically within a day, just actually, by just recognizing it. Slowing down is hugely important. The meditation. So, I've dabbled with it. But what I'll do typically three or four times throughout the day, take a 15 to 20 minute walk or just something, just, just get away from the devices, the computers, whatever, and do something that's kind of relaxing. Tell me, like, how, how did you learn how to meditate? Do you know and you said you use an app because it seems incredibly simple. Just don't think about stuff. But it's also, it's, it can be hard because, you know, our brains, okay, I'm counting my breath, I'm doing this, and also my mind's like, oh, wait, don't forget about what you got. You have got to call that person. You got to do that thing, you know? So, yeah, talk a little bit about it.
Amy Evans [43:54]
Well, you know, I've kind of learned how to meditate over the years. Mark, and it's just like anything. It's just, you just practice. And, you know, look, we didn't, when we were young kids. We didn't like to go out on a sport field and begin to play a game and expect to be like, you know, a rock star every moment we touch the field or the ball right, right? So, we've got to give ourselves some grace here, when we're learning how to do something new, that it's going to be a learning and it's going to be a little uncomfortable and a like, let go of the judgment of it. There's not a wrong way to meditate like that, right? Like, there's you can't screw it up. It's impossible, right? Like that the goal, the goal of it, is to, like, unplug, resettle yourself, get your energy from feeling scattered, get yourself from feeling kind of overwhelmed or frantic or whatever is kind of going on for you. Which frequently happens to me, and to kind of like, get grounded and be like, okay, now I can focus again and have perspective, and, you know, get a plan and start executing it. But after that pause, I really began learning to do that. I downloaded an app that is like, there's like, four apps that I couldn't live without on my phone, and I'll tell you, you know, Instagram is not one of them, but this one is, it's called Insight Timer, and there's other ones out there. And no, I started to do guided meditations, and like listening to someone walk you through what to do helps. And then I did last summer, set a goal. I was like, okay, I wonder. It was a question. I wonder if I can meditate without the guide. I was curious. So, it's like, oh, I wonder if I can try 20 minutes. Um, and so I said, I set a little timer on my phone, and I just, like, lay down and closed my eyes and did my breathing that I'd learned how to do, all these other practices that I'd tried, and it it turned out that I could. And there's sometimes I can get fully, totally, like, I would, you know, fully, totally calmed and like, no thought happening. But so, what if you have a thought? Like, who cares? All you do is say, okay, I'm thinking about something big deal, like, breathe, let it go, sit down, surrender a little bit. Like, don't judge yourself so much. It's okay. Like, you're just meditating. You wouldn't be judging yourself if you're going for a walk.
Mark Shriner [46:37]
You know you're so right about that. It's so funny, because I will get, I'll start my mind to start racing about something and then I would be like, oh, I'm doing it wrong. I'm pretty competitive. Like, no matter what I'm doing, I want to be, I want to, I want to do it well, right? And it's like, but like, I like the analogy of going for a walk. I don't compete when I go for a walk, okay? I just look at the trees, the flowers, and be like, hey, that's kind of cool. I like that? Yeah, so, well, you know, the other thing you mentioned was the journaling, and I kind of a subset of that. I was reading Tim Ferriss tool the Titans. He has this jar of awesome and anytime something good happens, or once, or, you know, whatever, he'll write it down and put it in a jar. And whenever he's feeling like, hey, I'm not doing well. He pulls out the jar of awesome, and he goes, oh my God, look at all this stuff that I did that I forgot about, right? Because sometimes we tend to focus on what's not going right, versus, yeah.
Amy Evans [47:31]
Oh my gosh! That's the human brain, right there. The human brain is like looking for problems all the time, right? We're trained to look, we're trained as evolution, to look for danger.
Mark Shriner [46:41]
No, that's true. And then, and then, in the way our media delivers information, it's all about what's going wrong and with the world versus, yeah, so I guess that's part of it. But hey, Amy, you also, as we mentioned earlier, you do a podcast. It's the women in sales leadership podcast. Tell me a little bit about that, like, you know, some of the guests you've had on what you talk about, I guess it's sales leadership, but yeah, yeah, in your words,
Amy Evans [48:08]
Yeah. Thank you for asking. Yeah, this was like a passion project of mine that evolved over the summer, and it's interesting Mark, like, I when podcasting became a thing, like, 10 years ago, I had this, like, you know, random fantasy that I would have a podcast someday. And I was like, then, like, the voice of, like, no, came on. It was like, well, what would it be about? And who would listen to it? And all this, right, all this, like, nay saying, stuff that I talked myself out of doing it. Well, last summer, I decided that I would. So, I hired a coach, and which is, you know, a path I've learned to take is for people to help me. Now I've decided I can't just solve every problem by myself, so I hired a coach, and we came up with podcasts. And she said, what do you want it to be about? And I said, I wanted to be about women in sales leadership. And so that's the podcast of what it's called. I launched that in September, and about to put up episodes nine and 10.
Mark Shriner [49:04]
Three months, two months. That's amazing.
Amy Evans [49:08]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know that I've got, I've got guests that are, that are amazing. I've loved, I think one of the most fun things about having the show is that I get to meet these absolutely amazing women leaders, and get to look, you know, a get to know them and to hear their story and be a part of sharing it with listeners. And no, I've talked to everybody from, you know, first line leaders inside tech companies. I've talked to presidents of huge brokerage firms that are in residential real estate. And I've talked to like, you know, SVPs of you know, big, big, you know, tech companies that everybody knows. So, you know, really, it's an opportunity to hear these leaders talk about their journey. And. And, you know, share some of the things that they've learned along the way. And, you know, what inspired me to create the show was, you know, the stark realization that, you know, what's exciting is that in the field of sales, there's been a lot of progress made. There are, you know, about half of the sellers out there in the world are female, which is great when it comes to sales leadership, however, only 30% of sales leaders are women, and I think there's just a lot tremendous opportunity to invite more women to the table and empower them to step up and to show them all of these great role models of female leaders who have taken the LEAP they've, you know, felt or heard the call of leadership, and they decided to, you know, step out on a ledge and say, You know what, I'm going to go for it. And they did. And so, it's exciting for me to get to share those stories, and it's an honor to get to know these ladies and put it out there for people to enjoy.
Mark Shriner [51:02]
That's really awesome, and I think very important, because a lot of times, if somebody doesn't see somebody like themselves in a in a position that they aspire to be in, it's hard for them to believe that there's a path for that, if you can, if you are somebody who's, you know, reached that position, and you can share your lessons learned, and, you know, and you create that kind of community, as I would think, is super, super helpful. That's awesome. Last question I want to go back to the very beginning. I asked you, you know, the differences and the motivations of working, you know, it's just all in for one company versus in a fractional role. Right now, you're working in a fractional role, maybe a couple different organizations, I'm not sure. Maybe. Can you talk a little bit about your reasons for doing that, and the pros and cons of Yeah, the former versus the latter?
Amy Evans [52:01]
Yeah, sure, so no, Mark, thank you for asking about that. You know, the reason that I chose to go that way, Mark is that, you know, along my journey, and after 25 years of doing this stuff, in some in some big companies, I look back and I thought, you know, when was I happiest, and when did I feel like I was really, like, so fulfilled by what I was doing? And the answer to that for me was when I was really building teams from the ground up and helping shape strategy for companies. And it turns out, you know, I've learned a few things along the way, and I have a lot to offer and share. And know the I didn't even know what fractional sales leadership was, even know what that was, until I had a friend that I know that that went into that world, and I began to learn about it. I thought, well, gosh, this sounds like exactly what I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to be able to come in help companies really design their go to market strategy, and not just have it be an idea that sits on the shelf, but have it be a real, actionable playbook that helps them a establish themselves as a real going concern, whether there, you know, series, a funding level, or beyond, being able to put all the things in place that have to be there in order to demonstrate credibility, credibility to customers, credibility to investors, that we can reliably hit our forecast, make our numbers, have the playbooks, have the right talent, have the right process to do so and create value for everybody that's involved in the company. So those are all the things that kind of really, they line up to my values, right? Um, integrity, growth and joy, and those, those things really are fun for me. And so, I am working with a company that you and I can learn connected through right now. And then I also coach individuals as a as a side business for myself. Um, I find that there are a number of individuals that really are still missing that leadership, coaching themselves, and it's a big component of what I did as a leader that I most loved and enjoyed was connecting with individuals, learning about their strengths, helping them grow and develop in their strengths, and also know, figure out tools to deal with the things they're not good at, right? And continue to grow and evolve so, that, you know, when I talk about, you asked me about pros and cons. I mean, you know, I guess there's some obvious ones, right? Like, I'm I, I'm doing fractional. Stuff I'm not like only thinking about one, one company at a time. My brain likes that. It may not be for everybody. I love multiple complex things going at once. I feel like that helps me in my development and growth and my vitality and, quite frankly, my creativity. Because you know what you learn in one space can sometimes be applied to another, another company and or there's derivatives of connection that you can find between the two to help growth across.
Mark Shriner [55:37]
That's, I agree with everything you're saying there, and it makes a lot of sense. And, you know, a lot of times it comes down to figuring out what you're looking for in your life. And, you know, integrity, growth and joy. And if you get that from working with multiple companies, and you get that stimulation, and you're helping them create something, I mean, I think there's nothing really more rewarding than helping somebody to develop themselves, which actually, if you think about sales, you're helping a customer solve a problem. It feels fun when it works. You know, it's, it's great. When did you realize that, hey, you know, because you obviously have a lot of knowledge and experience and and you can, you can bring a lot of value to, you know, large organizations or the smaller organizations you're helping with. You can coach individuals. You can bring value. Individuals. You can bring value. Did the did you have, like, an aha moment when you realized, hey, you know what? I can actually share this. And before you answer that, because I remember specifically having lunch with a business owner, and he and we were just having lunch, and I wasn't I actually, it was like a friends had introduced us, but I wasn't like, there to do any business. And we start talking about his background, my background, and he said, you know, we could really use you to come in and coach our teams. And I was like, me, I just And then, and so we, we actually worked out an engagement model, and it was a very successful engagement, and that led me to launching my own consulting practice in 2012, long story but the point was, is I wasn't thinking about it before. I had to have somebody kind of like serve it up to me for you. When did you have an aha moment that you know what I can bring value to, not just this organization, but maybe many different types of organizations.
Amy Evans [57:22]
Yeah, it was probably a moment that occurred over a couple of months, really. And I'll tell you, you know, so what led me to this spot mark is that, you know, there's, I have no secrets. You know, I was, I worked with Salesforce, and I was one of 10,000 people that they laid off in early 2023 and it was probably one of the best things that could have happened to me. I'd never been laid off before, but I was able to have some time as a result of that to really evaluate, like, what did I want to do with my career? Because up until then, I'd kind of just bumped like, I just sort of gotten lucky, I have to say, right, there wasn't a real design or a deliberate approach of anything I did. So, you know, maybe, maybe that's what other people can identify with that. And having to have that time gave me perspective about what did I want for myself in my life. And no, I've got two teenage kids. So, you know, 14 and 15 years old, I have a very limited amount of time left with them being, you know, in my life, in a regular basis, you know, they're going to go off and get out of the nest at some point. I do hope. And no in order to get to where I have been, I had to sacrifice a lot along the way, and one of the sacrifices that I made was not having enough time with my children that I would have loved to have had. And I began to think about, you know, okay, I could go back and do another corporate gig. My heart couldn't get excited about doing another corporate gig. And not to say that that's out of the picture for me, because you know what, you never know, and I always like to keep all options open. What began to open up for me over the course of a couple months was, you know, wow, what? What if I really could go do what I'd wanted to do 20 years ago, which is to consult and help companies and be this, you know, help. Helper that creates real value, helps them get their sales organization ready to raw in in a way that they can go to their investors and say, we are delivering the goods, and we have all the tools and talent to deliver the goods. And I like that constant I like that constant churn of new things to work on and new things to do. It stimulates my brain. And so, I really had to just give myself permission to stop looking for a corporate job, and I knew I had the credibility. Liddy, I knew I have the track record. I know I can do it. I had to just give myself permission to do it. And then I did what everybody says you got to do when you're doing something. I went and told everybody, I knew this is what I'm doing, so that I had to be accountable to do it. And now I am.
Mark Shriner [1:00:18]
And you've done it, hey. So no, I mean, you obviously have, like you said, a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience and wisdom to share. I one of the reasons I love doing podcasts is I get to meet people like you, and I get to learn a lot. I always take notes, and I took a bunch of notes that things that I will follow up with personally, you know to kind of add to my knowledge base as well afterwards. But Amy, I want to really, I really appreciate you coming on the grow fast podcast, you know. And I would like to wish you, and you know, all the different ventures you're involved with the greatest success and an amazing end to 2024
Amy Evans [1:00:57]
Absolutely. Well. Thank you. Right back at you. Mark, what a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Mark Shriner [1:01:03]
Likewise. Cheers. You.
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