"You Just Have to Work for It" – A Motto That Turned Into Business Success with Dave Mattson

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Episode Transcript

Tim Geisert:
Hey, welcome to the Selling Excellence Podcast for business executives. We all know B2B selling isn’t getting any easier and what’s worse, it’s getting more expensive.
Hello, I’m Tim Geisert, your host and partner at AuctusIQ, a selling excellence as a service company. Our goal today is to give you insights on how you can turn your sales force into a company asset. We hope you enjoy.
So with us today is Dave Mattson. Dave is present CEO of Sandler. Dave, how are you today?

David Mattson:
I’m doing great. Thanks for having me.

Tim Geisert:
You’re looking good today. You’re looking like you’re fit. You’re ready to go. It’s a Monday and you’re all ready to get after it. Is that true?

David Mattson:
That is true. Every day is game time, right?

Tim Geisert:
That’s true. So everybody in the audience, I heard Dave speak at their summit and he was absolutely fabulous, and what a great event that is. I mean, how long has Sandler been conducting that? Because that was just a fantastic event.

David Mattson:
I think we’re on the 12th year now, Tim, and it’s grown every single year, and we’re getting to the spot now where we’ve got to find some more space. But to your point, every time I go there, the tingle goes in the back of my neck. I’m so proud to be part of Sandler. When we hawk there you see so many clients that have been with us 19, 20 years. People have been going to that summit since the very first summit, which is just amazing for all that support. So thanks for coming.

Tim Geisert:
Well, it was cool because, I guess I’ll give you a shameless plug. Not only were the speakers fantastic, you and a lot of the franchisees, but it seems like a real need for those kinds of events. There just aren’t very many for sales leaders and to walk out of there inspired and energized, and you and your team just did a fantastic job.

David Mattson:
Well, thank you. I mean, we’ve all been to those, but we’re not selling anything in the back of the room. So it’s really just dispensing as much value as we can and hopefully you go use it. It’s a little different than most. You don’t have to hold onto your wallet every time you’re in one of those things.

Tim Geisert:
Maybe that’s why everybody was so relaxed. But it was great.

David Mattson:
Thank you.

Tim Geisert:
To do a little character development here because I want people who are listening in to get to know you because you’re pretty interesting guy. Tell us, there’s two things here. One is tell us what you’re doing with Sandler these days because it’s gone through quite a transformation. That’s the first part of the question, but I’ll throw both of them out here. As you’ve done this, what part of your life, what experience in your life really shaped who you are? And maybe those two blend together. I throw it out to you. You pick and choose how you want to answer those two questions.

David Mattson:
Well, maybe I’ll go backwards in time and I’ll start with the old one, then I’ll work up. How’s that?

Tim Geisert:
Perfect.

David Mattson:
I always think there’s pivotal points in your life throughout, and I just did this program, actually Pivotal Points, and you think about things Tim, that probably didn’t think about it was a big deal at the time, but really shaped the outcome of how you think, how you act, and was it meeting David Sandler? Maybe. Was it actually deciding to come down and work for Sandler for six months back in 1988?

Tim Geisert:
Six months.

David Mattson:
Maybe. But if I go back farther, here’s something that happened to me, which I do think shaped the way that I look at things and how I got here today. So my parents were teachers. We grew up in a very, I would say, middle to low class economic situation. My parents had this line, “You could have anything that you want, you just have to go work for it,” which that’s the way I grew up and I didn’t know any different.
Typical kid, I had three jobs all the way through until I was old enough to work. And then I still had three jobs picking tobacco at 14, that type. So that was who I was. I had a job in high school. I was going into my junior year in high school and teachers painted houses. So that’s kind of what they did. Now my dad was an administrator, so he didn’t necessarily do that, but I worked for a teacher and at first, Tim, I thought it was just a great job. I got tan, I could listen to the radio. I was getting paid. The life was good. And then fast-forward for a second, midway through that first summer, somebody had handed me a check to give to the two teachers. Now I was making $275 a week. I was painting with some other kid. He was making $275 a week. The teachers were at some other jobs, so we were by ourselves for the most part. And we were doing two houses a week. And so when she handed me a check for $4,700 to give to the owners, I was like, “Well, wait a minute now, they paid for the paint, so I know there’s no supply cost here. I got $275, you got $275. We’re painting about two houses a week. Wow.”
I had this fantasy that I was going to be a natural resource officer in the middle of Montana going around on a horse with my gun and doing all those things. And that’s when it clicked. Right then I said, “Well, I better start paying attention and stop listening to the radio. Who cares about this tan? This could be it.” I started really asking lots of questions as if I owned it and really got into it.
The very next year going into that senior year, I went on my own and I got a partner. Fast-forward, I did that all through college, actually. Paid for college. I had 11 crews by the time I was done.

Tim Geisert:
Wow.

David Mattson:
And that just propelled me into being an entrepreneur above and beyond doing the driveways and raking leaves and all that good stuff. But I had employees and then you had to do all the chess games and moving all the pieces and juggling entrepreneurs juggle. And I realized I could do it. And so that really changed everything for me. And because I was so young and I was getting taken advantage of, quite frankly, because people would come back and say, “I’m not paying you for that. You make more in a day than I make in a week and I’m more times your age.” Even though I was the lowest bid that they ever got. But it just taught me so many different things over that six year period of time that I still, really, some of those principles I still use today. So I think that’s really what changed me and made me more open-minded to go down and see Dave Sandler initially. And fast-forward 38 years later, here I am.

Tim Geisert:
So how did you meet David?

David Mattson:
I was actually a client of Sandler and I sold office machines. So I’ll even age myself for a minute. Here is my claim to fame. We had a memory typewriter, Tim, so if you hit a button, boy, it actually remembered a form.

Tim Geisert:
Back in the day.

David Mattson:
Whoa. That was hot stuff back then. So they were Sandler clients, and I was a typical centene in the back of the room who didn’t want to be there, trying to figure out how to sneak out at lunch and tell my employer that I was there for two days and I loved it. I fell in love. It was all based on psychology. I didn’t have to act like I wasn’t something I wasn’t.
I became their number one salesperson using Sandler. Then I went to work for the local trainer for two years. And during that time I was really into Sandler at that point in time. I was listening to, I’m going to age myself here, all the tapes, and I could just recite everything. And because I worked for the local office up in Connecticut, I went down to see Dave Sandler at these conferences four times a year and probably a second year into it he’s, “Look, I’m growing rapidly. I’m looking for somebody to train our trainers.” And I was like, “That could be me.” And I went to interview with Dave and that was it. Moved down in 1988, never went back.

Tim Geisert:
That must have been, I mean, for a guy that was listening to the tapes and kind of drinking the Kool-Aid, you probably felt like you were meeting somebody of great fame at the time, because he was-

David Mattson:
I did, because he was the person at the pinnacle for me from as far as the sales training and had all the right responses and all those other things that I learned. I was, for lack of another term, a cult member of Sandler. I really just bought into… I was 27 years old at that point in time, 28. I didn’t have 15 years of baggage so whatever they said, I said, “Okay, that must be it.” And I just suspended disbelief and I just jumped in full flesh. And I probably saved 20 years of my career by just doing what I was told and not fighting. And that’s what happened.

Tim Geisert:
Well, so let’s take this then to the first question, which is as a cult follower. I mean, I’ve seen from afar, now close up the transformation you’re taking with Sandler now, which is really quite… Talk to us about that. Tell us about that. I mean, for a guy who’s been around for a long time, why change?

David Mattson:
Well, listen, status quo is the first symptom of you’re out of business. So you’re going to constantly have to do those things. And in our environment as trainers and as consultants, everything’s changing at acceleration of technology. But that’s been going on for… It’s cyclical for sure. But you’ve got learners that are learning in different ways. Everything’s changing. And Sandler has morphed seven different times that I can count since I’ve been here, just to meet the demands of what’s going on in the environment, whether it’s from a client perspective or a technology perspective. And I think that’s what you constantly have to do.
The way that we train has changed dramatically. The types of organizations has grown geometrically. We’re putting 50,000 people through our system a year, and we’ve added a whole enterprise group now. So we really dominate that entrepreneurial S&B marketplace, which we have for many, many years. And now we’re attacking the enterprise side as well, and really taking those best practices that we’ve gotten from that entrepreneurial marketplace and applying it over to the enterprise side. And we have a unique advantage, Tim, we’re coming from small business up to enterprise, which we’ve been now for a while, but most enterprise companies in our space cannot go down to the S&B. They just can’t figure it out. So I think we have a distinct advantage.

Tim Geisert:
Well, and I mean, all sales is local, so scaling up makes a lot more sense than coming down and having worked in those larger enterprise companies, you can clearly see that. The coming up is almost, in fact, in some ways, I guess I’ll throw this out to you, tell me if you disagree or not, but it seems like with the years of Xerox and IBM that used to train all these enterprise organizations that are no longer doing that, there just seems to be such a vacuum of training needs and development needs and other kinds of business processes at the enterprise level that used to be there, that just isn’t anymore. Would you agree? And what would you say to that?

David Mattson:
I do agree, and I think it’s even harder now that you have remote workers for that transfer of best practices in the playbooks. Is that it’s so much harder if you would really think about it? And I think sales is one of those professions where it’s not systematized as much as you would think, like an accounting group. So a lot of this is learned by the school of hard knocks, and it’s really hard for organizations to grab onto that. So I think we’ve made that transition, I think better than most, quite frankly in doing that. But if you really sit back with all these changes, people still buy from people. And we can talk about how AI is going to push salespeople out of business, and maybe it will one day, but I don’t think so when it comes to some of the more consultative type sales processes, I still think you’ve got to navigate what’s what. Now that’s changed dramatically. But I think the environment is such that people are still going to buy from people for the foreseeable future anyways.

Tim Geisert:
So let’s just talk about the future. You and I were having a conversation in preparation for this. It just seems like the biggest struggle when I talk to CROs or senior executives, they’re just trying to put a moniker and a name around understanding where the future’s going to go. The present is so muddy and murky and changes everywhere. I would guess our audience would be really interested if you’re hearing the same thing about where to go in the future and what your thoughts are, given all the transformation you’ve been a part of over these years at Sandler.

David Mattson:
Yeah, well, that’s a huge topic. I’m not even sure where to begin on that one, but certainly I would say that the future of sales, I mean, we’re going to have to become technologists to a certain extent.

Tim Geisert:
Yeah.

David Mattson:
I mean, I don’t know if it’s going to replace us for sure. I don’t think anyone can tell us that. But what I do think is that technology is going to make our lives more effective and more efficient. Now we have to embrace that. We’ve got to figure out where does technology start and end, and where does the rest of the sales process start and end? And the buyer journey has changed dramatically as well. I think in today’s environment with the decisions that are becoming much more conservative in nature. So they’re a little slower, there’s a lot more people involved now. I think organizations are making decisions based on the enterprise, just not one group like, “Hey, I’m buying this for my group.”
Well, not so much anymore, and now we’re going to buy it for the organization. And now you’ve got so many different perspectives on this same product or service that we’re talking about and you have to have business cases for this group and that group. And it changes all the time. So I think it’s becoming a little muddy for most sellers as far as who’s in charge or who’s actually the ultimate decision maker or where are things getting done?
And I also think that building business cases these days is far more important than it ever has in the past, really. And really what we’ve successfully been able to do, I’ll call technology sometimes the what and Sandler’s always combined the what do you do and how do you do it, and how part is really the magic sauce for us. And so regardless of all the what’s that are going out there, whether it’s the decision making’s changing or technology or how do I do this, how do I do that? I think that as long as we can continue focusing in on how you do certain things, as an example, go get the ultimate decision maker. Well that sounds another genius attack. That sounds great. How do I do that? And that’s really what we’ve always been able to bring to the table. And if we continue to do that, then we’ll continue to bring value to the end user and we’ll be in great stead.

Tim Geisert:
I mean, that makes total sense. The how to is always going to be needed no matter what happens in the marketplaces. And one of the things we’re excited about, and we’re thankful that you are on our podcast here as a guest. We’re excited about this partnership with you guys. We’ve been a fan, Troy, Courtney, and I for many, many years. It’s great to be in the trenches with you. But I’m going to ask a little bit of a forward question. We’re long on the tooth as executives, but we’re new as a company. What attracted us to you in your transformation where you’re trying to go in the future?

David Mattson:
Well, look, first of all, you’re super talented. The group of people that you’ve assembled by far is superior to most. I mean, you guys have awesome talent, awesome team. So if I look at Auctus in general, there’s a couple different things. Now I can put aside for a minute talent IQ, and you cut, you’ve got data driven assessments that’s going to drive our business because why? Well first of all, we can identify very quickly the skill gaps. Now that’s super important in our business. So we can just say that’s really where you should focus your attention for your team development in addition to, here’s what that individual needs in order to increase their own productivity. And that’s really important for us because now we can match our content very specifically to those skill gaps versus that big picture. You’re just throwing everything against the wall and saying, “We’re going to teach you the Sandler Selling System.” Of course that will help. But now it gives us the ability to just say from like an MRI, this is exactly what you need right now for the team and for that person. So I think that’s there.
If I set back even further, when you start to combine AI and all the things that you guys have developed and then apply it to this role, which I’m super passionate about, which is sales leadership, I think to help them do deal coaching when sales leaders do not have a lot of time. Time compression for sales leaders is such a big issue that when I just jump in, I’m going to say, “All right, well Tim, let’s talk about the deal.” Well, you start talking, next thing you know, it’s just fantasy. It’s not because you’re misleading me, it’s just because that’s your perception. And so now if I can just laser guide where I can offer help, that would be tremendous.
Second, I may not even know where you need help, because the average tenure of a sales leader is so small that we typically promote the best salesperson, but that doesn’t mean the best sales leader. You have an awesome tool that makes me act like I’ve been doing it for 50 years and I can give that advice and just pinpoint what I need to do. And then to have a clean funnel, I mean, think about deal coaching and then think about sales funnel management for a second. I think the value of a sales leader is when you can call the number. And in today’s world, everyone’s going to go, “How do I qualify? How do I figure out my funnel says $50M.” But I know it’s not true, Dave. I just don’t know what that number is. I can’t readily run my business. I’m doing some swag system. That sales leader, I know they’re probably 40% off all the time. This one’s over here, they’re 30% off. How do I make sense of this? When you have DealIQ as an example, I’ll tell you what, that just allows that precision, that certainty and calling that number, that is what attracted us to it. Because again, now you have the what. These are questions that you should be answering. This is the what? Sandler comes on top of that with the how to us, that was like a one-two combination that can’t be beat.

Tim Geisert:
One of the things that is just fantastic. As a previous practitioner in utilizing the tools, I really got thrown into the deep end of the pool in running sales. And you’re exactly right, when it comes to sales managers that these one, two punches, three adding in the Sandler is just one hell of a way in which to just arm and develop those sales people in a precision way. And I think that was a term you used when we were talking about this, is we’re going to need to be more precise. We just can’t show up, figure it out, throw a blanket out there and see how it works. It’s got to be precision, it’s got to be measured.
Just the other day we were on a sales call with a joint prospect and the person, after we went through all of what we could do, he paused. We just did the throw it out there and just wait, ask a question and wait and wait and wait. He thought, and he thought, and he thought, he just goes, “I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve never seen where it all weaves together. It puts a business process, it puts data together.” And it just was arguably, and I don’t know if I should say this or not, but it was one of the most fun presentations, sales calls I had ever been on because we just nailed it, it was a great combination for him.

David Mattson:
Well, I mean, listen, we want our teams to be self-sufficient. That’s the ultimate goal of any sales leader is to have my team self-sufficient so all roads don’t lead to me as a sales leader. Above and beyond what we’ve talked about, which is calling that number and having the precise predictability of close for a sales leader. Think of what it does for me as a salesperson, because now I can self-diagnose because if I’m looking at the tools within DealIQ and here are the questions that I should know the answers to, I don’t have to wait for my weekly meeting with my sales manager. This is exactly what I know now. This is what I need to know in order to move that predictability scale from a 33% chance of close to a 75% chance of close. Well, I’m on commission. I’m competitive. I’m going to go get that right now.

Tim Geisert:
Exactly.

David Mattson:
And now again, using the Sandler how to, I could do a lot more on my own than waiting for that, as I said, that meeting with the sales leader and everybody wins. The salesperson wins, their family wins, the company wins. Everybody wins. And that’s what attracts us.

Tim Geisert:
Well, we really appreciate being a part of the Sandler family and a partnership as such. It’s just been one of the most gratifying things. But with our audience here who is a mix of CEOs, heads of sales, you speak to this audience every day and you hear from them, you interact with them. What are some of the things that you’re sharing with them? What’s some of the advice that you would leave our audience with here as really one of the premier executives in this profession as you sit right now? What are you saying to them? What do you share with them and what could you share today?

David Mattson:
Well, there’s an awful lot, but certainly I would say, “Have you looked at your sales process recently?” And by the way, sales leaders, there’s a difference between sales methodology and sales process.

Tim Geisert:
So true.

David Mattson:
And I think people get confused. CRM by the way, is not sales process. So figure out what your sales process is. What are you going to do from the time that you prospect to the time that you have happy customers? Match it into the buyer journey, which is changing all the time. And then of course, make sure that your messaging is consistent. Make sure that you’re really spending time with sales leaders and giving them the tools necessary to succeed. They are the tip of the spear when it comes to generating revenue. And I think that they’re the most under trained group of people in our organizations, and I would tell a CRO and an owner, entrepreneurs, spend a ton of time with your sales leaders, spend a ton of time. Make sure by the way that you have a common methodology throughout the organization so you have a common language and a common sales culture.
And culture is so important. Tim, it boggles my mind when I’m teaching sales managers one thing, BDRs one thing, enterprise people one thing, and they’re in the same company. I have five children. So it’s like having each of my kids speak a different language at dinner. They’re all very intelligent. I’m sure it makes sense, but it doesn’t work. That’s why on the other side of the business, they have ERP systems. Well, that’s really what you and I are doing on the sales side when you think about it.

Tim Geisert:
That’s right.

David Mattson:
Honestly.

Tim Geisert:
That’s right. Getting that one language down, getting it all consistent. And you said it earlier, I think this is one of the most interesting little bits that people can take away. And that is time is just so precious. Every moment has to be best utilized, whether you’re working a deal, whether you’re doing training, whether you’re trying to figure out where to take the company, where you’re trying to take your sales organizations, whatever it is, that is the limited resource. So making the most of that and everything you do with precision is really the way the competitive advantage lays out for a sales organization.

David Mattson:
I agree. I think there’s two things that come to mind. One is, as a sales leader, you should promote and celebrate when people disqualify deals out of your funnel.

Tim Geisert:
Yeah.

David Mattson:
I mean, honestly, we’re doing everybody a favor. I think the second thing that which we teach at Sandler is to have a behavioral plan or a cookbook. You should be able to know every single day, what do I have to do to be successful? I mean, given the choice, if I had two roles hypothetically, which is net new business and grow my existing portfolio, most humans would gravitate towards growing my portfolio versus net new business. But if I’m supposed to be doing all of those things and I don’t have a plan of activities that I have to do every day, so it’s a well-rounded book of business, I tend to be reactive. And when I’m reactive, I tend to be putting out fires and/or I just focus on the things that I enjoy to do. Now, I may be generating revenue, but only selling one product or service when I could have had a whole portfolio as an example, or one segment of my business, but forgetting the other segment of my business. So I think when it comes to time, structure your time to reflect what the goals of the organization are, but also again, celebrate and really deal with the issues that you have to deal with upfront. Because I always think it takes five minutes to deal with it now and about 35 minutes to clean up my mess later. So let’s just get it done now.

Tim Geisert:
Yeah. Dave, thank you so much for being a guest today. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your thoughts. Congratulations on the success that you’re having at Sandler, and we’re so happy to be a part of it.

David Mattson:
Well, we’re excited about our partnership, Tim, and listen, we’re going to do wonderful things together.

Tim Geisert:
No doubt about it. Thank you.

David Mattson:
Thank you.

Tim Geisert:
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Selling Excellence Podcast for business executives. I hope you gained some insight on how to help turn your sales organization into a company asset.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the Sales Excellence Podcast wherever you get your podcast. And for more information about AuctusIQ or to schedule a discovery call, visit our website at auctusiq.com. Until next time, this is Tim Geisert, your host and partner at AuctusIQ, here to help you sell more and grow your company.

Speaker 3:
A Hurrdat Media production.