How to retain great salespeople & to dismiss those that need to go, with Judy Hoberman

An efficient sales team is vital to a profitable business, and it's a problem if people keep leaving.  It might be time to dig deep into what's going on with your sales team or need to rethink your work culture.

So how do you retain and motivate your top salespeople, who are keys to your business success?

And for non-performers, do you try to turn them around, or is it better to let them go? How can you do it properly and without drama?

 
In this episode, guest Judy Hoberman shares how to retain top salespeople when high commissions and monetary rewards might not be enough motivation. 

Judy is a successful speaker, consultant, entrepreneur, and the President of Judy Hoberman and Associates, a company focused on empowering professional women. 

She is an award-winning international speaker, best-selling author, trainer, and leading authority on women in leadership. With over three decades in business, she combines wisdom and humor with her behavior-shaping insights impacting audiences of thousands as well as small groups and individuals through her 1:1 executive coaching and mentoring.  Judy works with companies supporting their diversity and women's initiatives in leadership, recruiting, training, coaching, mentoring, and retention. She has written four books and is also a TEDx speaker.  

In this week's episode, we discuss:

02:46 What are the signs of a deeper retention problem with your salespeople?

04:41 Regarding "silent" salespeople, how do you uncover issues brewing underneath the surface?

07:08  What questions can you ask to help uncover any silent issues?

13:28 What are other non-financial motivators for salespeople? 

14:37 How do you implement a "recognition culture" in your business, especially for salespeople? 

16:49 Any examples of sales rep recognition programs that have failed or did not work? 

18:36 What can you do in advance to prepare yourself and your sales rep so that letting them go won't come as a shock? 

24:19 What signs or situations might cause you to let your big producer go?

27:36 What can you do to make it easier to have difficult conversations about letting people go?

32:33 What's the one step to take right now to ensure good employee retention rates? 

Resources:

Judy Hoberman, Successful Speaker, Consultant, and Entrepreneur
Judy Hoberman and Associates, Selling In A Skirt:
https://www.sellinginaskirt.com/

LinkedIn: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/judyhoberman/

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/SellingInASkirt

Email: 
judy@sellinginaskirt.com

Author of Walking On the Glass Floor: 
https://walkingontheglassfloor.com/

The Greatest Missed Opportunity | Judy Hoberman | TEDxTurtleCreekWomen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgk-3QEM6tw

Kathy Svetina, Fractional CFO:
https://www.newcastlefinance.us/

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Chapters

• 2:46 What are the signs of a deeper retention problem with your salespeople?
• 4:41 Regarding "silent" salespeople, how do you uncover issues brewing underneath the surface?
• 7:08 What questions can you ask to help uncover any silent issues?
• 13:28 What are other non-financial motivators for salespeople?
• 14:37 How do you implement a "recognition culture" in your business, especially for salespeople?
• 18:02 Any examples of sales rep recognition programs that have failed or did not work?
• 19:49 What can you do in advance to prepare yourself and your sales rep so that letting them go won't come as a shock?
• 25:32 What signs or situations might cause you to let your big producer go?
• 28:49 What can you do to make it easier to have difficult conversations about letting people go?
• 33:46 What's the one step to take right now to ensure good employee retention rates?

Transcript

Kathy (host):
Hello there and welcome back to Help! My Business is Growing, a podcast where we explore how to grow and build a business that is healthy and sustainable. I'm your host, Kathy Svetina.

Kathy (host):
If your business has a robust sales department, it can be a financial disaster when your salespeople have a high turnover rate, besides the obvious loss of sales, you also have to factor in the recruitment and onboarding training costs for both the sales rep who left and their replacement. So what should you do to ensure that you keep your top sellers from leaving your company? And how do you reduce the potential churn rate of this group that drives your growth? And on the flip side, what about sales team members that are a bad culture fit or are just not working out? And how do you let them go respectfully and appropriately with the least amount of drama and destruction possible?

Kathy (host):
Just a quick reminder, all of the episodes on this podcast, including this one, come with timestamps for topics that we discuss and each one has its own blog post as well. You can find all the links and the detailed topics in this episode's show notes. Our guest today is going to help us answer all of those questions.

Kathy (host):
She is Judy Hoberman and she is a successful speaker, consultant, entrepreneur, and president of Judy Hoberman and Associates, a company focused on empowering professional women. She is an award-winning international speaker, bestselling author, trainer, and leading authority on women in leadership with over three decades in business.

Kathy (host):
She combines wisdom and humor with her behavior, shaping insights, and impacting audiences as thousands, as well as small groups and individuals through her one on one, executive coaching, and mentor. And she's often described as transformational. Judy works with companies supporting their diversity in women's initiatives, in leadership, recruiting, training, coaching, mentoring, and retention.

Kathy (host):
She was a TEDx speaker talking about prejudging people. She is also the author of four books, including Selling in a Skirt and Walking on the Glass Floor. She offers a training program that concentrates on women in leadership and the men who champion them with an emphasis on redefining. Join us.

Kathy (host):
Welcome to the show, Judy.

Judy (guest):
I'm thrilled to be here. Very excited. Could not wait for today.

Kathy (host):
Yeah, me either. We're going to have a really, really exciting topic because I've talked about salespeople on this podcast a while ago, but we've never really dived into how do you actually retain those salespeople, and for those that they're not really working out for you, how do you let those go in a very easy, appropriate way. So let's first talk about how do we know that salespeople's retention is becoming a problem versus just being a normal, healthy employee turnover. Why would some of the signs be?

Judy (guest):
Well, I mean, in this day and age, you have to remember there's this great resignation. So there's your first sign like everybody's leaving. What I remember seeing when somebody was ready to go, they weren't present anymore. They weren't really there. They were there physically, but they were doing other things or they would conveniently be sick for a while or whatever it was. It just, you knew they had already checked out even before they actually checked out. Either their numbers were down or they were complaining all the time. There were things that were like the red flags you would see.

Judy (guest):
Then you have the silent ones that you don't know they're ready to leave because they're doing what they're supposed to do, but they've decided this is not for them, and so they're busy looking elsewhere.

Judy (guest):
So it comes on one side to the other. But you have to be careful because if somebody is being negative, even if it's just like little things and they're undermining you, they're going to destroy your entire team and you have to watch for that as well. If you start to see your numbers really going down, or if you start to see the morale is really low, you have to watch that because they're like, it's almost like a neon light saying, "Hey, pay attention because you're going to lose everybody." So you just have to be careful.

Judy (guest):
The other thing is, if a very big top producer starts to realize that he is too important. Then he also directs everything. He's the one that's going to be able to say to everybody else, "Well, you're never going to make it here because I'm the top dog", or there's something going on with the culture and it's broken, or whatever.

Judy (guest):
And so that person also dictates it. So there's lots of little signs and then there's big signs.

Kathy (host):
And you talked about the, which I'm really interested to hear more about the silent ones, the ones that you don't really know that there's something brewing. How would you figure that out? Is there anything that you can do to make sure that there's really nothing going on maybe they're unhappy and they're not telling you about it and you have no idea what really is?

Judy (guest):
Yeah, so one of the things I always say is that a leader is somebody that knows their people. I mean, you need to know your people. That's the most important thing that you can possibly do in any position, but especially when you have a team below you. You have to know your people. You have to know why they're there, why they came, and what's going on there. Because if you don't know, how do you direct them to what their next step is? And so when I would be recruiting, when I was in financial services, I as an agency manager, I was recruiting people and I knew everything about them. Not nosy things like not that, but I would know like, "Why did they even want to come and join this particular company and what were their goals and so on and so forth."

Judy (guest):
So when you start to see somebody quiet or even quieter because they're already quiet, that's when you have to step in. and I would just sit down with people. I'd say, "So what's going on? Really? What? What's happening?"

Judy (guest):
And I remember distinctly, somebody said to me that another company had approached. And this other company was promising the sun, the moon, and the stars. And I said, "Well, do you know what they're offering you really?" "Oh yeah, they're going to offer me a salary. They're going to offer me this." And we didn't do salary, we were straight commission. And so I said, "Is that something you need to do? Because if it is, you should go. Really? If it is, you should go." And they said, "Yeah, but I really, I mean, I kind of like it here and I, whatever." So the conversation would go on and on, and finally I'd say to them, "You know, you could go. But you're not going to be able to come back because we're going to be able to replace you with somebody that really wants to be here. So make your decision, but you really have to make it once, because I did not have that revolving door swing back." Because once you go, you're going to go again.

Judy (guest):
Some people just said it's, it sounded too good to be true or whatever, and they would stay. But some people did leave and I was glad when they left because they didn't belong there. It's not that everybody says, "Well, it's a family." It's not a family, but it's a very strong bond with people because sometimes you don't get along with your family.

Kathy (host):
Yep.

Judy (guest):
Like you don't want it to be your family.

Kathy (host):
Or it could be a completely dysfunctional family.

Judy (guest):
Totally. Totally. And you don't want that either. You have that at home already. You don't need it here.

Judy (guest):
I would always sit down with people and ask them what was going on. Just, you know, be straight with me because I'll be straight with you. And that's what it is. It was an open line of communication.

Kathy (host):
And what were some of the questions that you were asking? You already mentioned a couple of things like why are you in this company? What's going on? Are there any specific questions that you were asking to uncover those silent issues?

Judy (guest):
Well, when I first would recruit people, you have to remember the first piece of this whole thing is attraction. Why are they attracted to you? And so when I would recruit somebody, I would say, "Tell me three things that I can expect from you, and tell me three things that you would expect from me." So in another month or so, if things were not going as smoothly as I thought they would be going. I would go back to the three and the three. And I would say, "Are we not delivering, and here's the three things, or are you not delivering?" And so that would be the first initial piece because then you knew that somebody was not exactly thrilled.

Judy (guest):
And the other piece would be the people that are silent. What's really going on behind the scenes are they not making enough money to support themselves or support their families? Because money sometimes is the number one thing, but money is often not the number one thing. It's the same way, "why would you take a position because it's money, but why would you take a position?" It's not money, it's the recognition.

Judy (guest):
So I would go and I would ask that kind of questions, and I would say to them, "Is there something that I could be doing to make this a better position for you? Is there something you're looking for?" But remember I said you have to know your people. So when I would first bring them in, I would ask them, "Tell me what it is that you want to do within this company." There were only three things they would say, "I just want to be a producer. You know, I just want to sell. I don't want to care about anybody but myself." And I would say, "Great. Let me show you the journey they would want to be in leadership." And I would say, "Great. Let me show you the journey." Or they would say, "I want your possession." And I would say, "Awesome. Let me show you the journey." So there were only three.

Judy (guest):
So if anybody started to get silent, I would say, "Do you still want to go into leadership because I have that written, or do you still want my job because it's open? Or have you changed your mind about being just a producer because nobody's just anything?" And sometimes they'd say, "Yeah, I really want to go into leadership" or, "This is not working out." I was inside their head in a good way. In a good way.

Kathy (host):
And I love that you point out that there's three options and the option could also be that you are, as you said, just the producer, even though it's not just the producer. Because I've seen a lot of companies, especially in the corporate world that I was in, people make the mistake of thinking that people just naturally want to go up in ranks and hire in the business. But that's just not true because some people just don't want to be in management because it takes a lot of different skills than being the producer.

Judy (guest):
And it's also a lot more responsibility.

Kathy (host):
Yeah.

Judy (guest):
Because it's not just you anymore. When you're the just, then you only have to worry about you. But when you are going up the ranks, then you have to really be careful because especially like when I talk a lot about women. So as women go up, their responsibilities go up just like a man. But then there's also the same responsibilities they have at home that didn't change. They're still the mom and they're still the person that takes the kids to school and they're still the one, when the kids get sick, they're home. And they're still the one, still the one, still the one. So now you're adding that to this new responsibility of now they have 10 kids that they have to be responsible for. So it's a lot.

Judy (guest):
I know for me, when I was promoted, they didn't ask me. They told me I was promoted. Would I have taken it if they asked me? I'm not sure. Not sure because it was a big change for me and I was a single mom. It was a big change. So ask.

Judy (guest):
But you also have to be able to say, if somebody says to you, "I would like this, but not right now. "You have to be able to say, "Okay, let's revisit this." As opposed to saying, "Well if you don't take it now, you're never going to get it again." Because that's what happens as well. So again, you have to know your people.

Kathy (host):
And there's also that risk too, that if you do get promoted to someone who didn't want to be promoted, you might have a silent one on your hands.

Judy (guest):
Exactly.

Kathy (host):
And they're just, they're not producing as they used to be producing and they're not managing as you expect them to.

Judy (guest):
No. And they're also figuring out how to leave. And when they leave, here's the other thing that people don't realize. They're taking your intellectual property with them. You don't even realize all the stuff that they've learned, all the stuff, all the books that they have, and the manuals you do that's your intellectual property that they're taking with them now.

Judy (guest):
So that's why I just really like to understand who my people were and what they really wanted. And if it wasn't right for either one of us, it was time to move along. I'll give you a perfect example. When I had different offices in different states and in one of the states I had inherited a sales leader, and he was the nicest man ever, like ever. But he was the worst sales leader. The worst. Because he would go into his customers and he would say, "I have 125 different ways you can buy this." Well, if somebody said to you, I have 125 different ways, Kathy, what do you do? You're like, "Oh my God, he's going to be here forever." Right? Yeah. He couldn't train anybody because no one else could do that. So his numbers were down. His people weren't staying, everybody was miserable. It was horrible. So I sat down with him and I took out all the reports about being a sales leader and I said to him, "Could you take a look at all of these and tell me what you think?" That's all I said. I didn't say anything else. And he looked at them and he said, "You know what, If it were me, I would not have me as a sales leader." And I said, "Why is that?" And he said, "Well, I'm on the bottom of every list. I'm not anywhere near the top. I don't really like what I'm doing. I don't like training people. I don't like, I don't like, I don't like, I don't like." So he could have been a silent one, right? So I said to him, "Well, what is it that you want to do?" He said, "If it's okay with you, I'd really go, rather go back to being a producer." Remember I inherited him. I didn't hire him, so I didn't have that initial conversation.

Kathy (host):
Yeah.

Judy (guest):
So I said to him, "If you want to do that, I'm happy with that." He said, "Oh my goodness, that would be great." And he went back and he was one of my top producers. So sometimes people aren't even in the right spot, but you don't know if you don't ask.

Kathy (host):
You talked about also how money's not the main motivator, and I've seen that too. There comes a time. I think it's more in like what stage people are in, also what type of money they're making.

Judy (guest):
Right.

Kathy (host):
Because there comes a certain point where money just is not enough of a driver anymore. What have you seen that has been, not just a money driver, but what are some of the other things that people have really gone after, especially the salespeople that are those motivators for them?

Judy (guest):
What do you think salespeople like better than anything?

Kathy (host):
Recognition?

Judy (guest):
Themselves? That's number one. If you think about it, most people don't see their name in print. They don't see their name in print. They're not a celebrity. They're not the president of the company, they're not the CEO. They are the "just". " I'm just a salesperson and whatever." But when you are recognized, there's an award, there's something that there's an engraved plaque. There's something in the company newsletter that's saying, "Oh, you know, you are amazing, and look at what you've done and blah, blah, blah, blah." They want the recognition. They want other people to know that they're good at what they. They tell themselves they're good, but that's different. When somebody else says to you, "Oh, you're amazing and, and you've won this award and you're number one, or you're number three, or you're the top 10, or whatever you are", that means more than almost anything else. Almost anything. And we would do crazy little contests just so we could get people engraved on a board. They would make people would fight to get their names on that board.

Kathy (host):
Wow.

Judy (guest):
Yeah.

Kathy (host):
So if someone wants to implement this recognition culture in their business, especially for the salespeople, what are some of the things that you have seen that work well? So you said putting a name on the board. Maybe have little competition. What else can people be doing in the business to spice that sales pot, I guess?

Judy (guest):
Well, the one thing you could do is you could ask people what they would want because as one of the only women, we would get things like tackle boxes and golf clubs and coolers and things like that. We didn't, you know, what do you do with that?

Kathy (host):
Yeah.

Judy (guest):
You know really it's just, it's a thing. You want it. I always wanted, because I was responsible for my family and I had to make sure that I did the right thing, so when you do the right thing you get what you need. But every week my kids would say, "Well, what'd you get?" I'm like, "Tacklebox." "What'd you get." "You know, golf balls."

Judy (guest):
So if you would ask, it might, I don't know if it would change the results, but it might be something that they would want. I would ask everybody like, "What is it that you want?" "Oh, I'd like to get a plaque, or I'd like to go on a vacation, or I'd like to buy something for my family." or, you know, things like that. And when I said the plaque, I wasn't kidding. We had a plaque. It was $3 and 75 cents to get your name engraved. That's all it was. It was a little tiny rectangle. That's all it was. That's what they were fighting for. That's what they were fighting for.

Judy (guest):
But I always ask like, "what is it? If you could win a contest, what would you want?" Finally, after I was with the company for a couple of years and I was still a producer at that point, my regional director said to me, "I don't know why we keep giving you like tackle boxes and things like that. I'm sure you don't want that." I'm like, "It's okay. I would still work just as hard." He said, "But what if we gave you something like a diamond bracelet?" "Like that would be nice."

Judy (guest):
Just ask. It's not that difficult. You can say, "I would love to get a gift certificate of such, such, and such. Oh, I'd really like to buy this thing, or whatever." If you ask, they'll tell you. Everybody will tell you exactly what they want. If you don't ask, you don't know.

Judy (guest):
And one size does not fit all. Let me just say that. One size does not fit all. Not everybody wants this. Not all women want this. Not all men want that. So you really, if you ask, you'll get what people want.

Kathy (host):
And have you seen a company try something that just did not work well when it comes to employee recognition, especially sales, for salespeople?

Judy (guest):
Oh, there's lots of things. It's all the little trinkets that people could care less about because you have so many of them and you toss them. That's usually what doesn't work. I will say when you get to some of the bigger awards, I have lots of eagles that are on marble. They weigh 50 pounds and their wingspan is huge. They're beautiful. I have a lot of them. I don't know what to do with them. You know, I still have them, but they're beautiful and it means a lot.

Judy (guest):
At that level, they don't ask you. They don't ask you, but then they'll give you another perk. Okay? And in addition to this, because you won this and because you wrote this many businesses or whatever, we're also going to give you a gift certificate to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's the blah blah that you like. This stuff is beautiful.

Kathy (host):
Yeah. It seems like it's more of a physical representation. Like you said, it's that recognition that you can display on your desk, that you can display on your shelf, and people can actually see it.

Judy (guest):
Yeah, I used to have to seatbelt them in my car when I was moving because the moving trucks wouldn't take them. So I'd have to drive back and forth and bring all my eagles.

Judy (guest):
Yeah.

Kathy (host):
So we've also talked about these are great tips for salespeople's recognition and how do you actually retain them. But let's say that you have tried to do as much as you can. You have this great program and you've had the conversation with them and things are just not working out, unfortunately. And you have to have that unfortunate conversation of you have to let them go. So the question is are there some things that you can be doing in advance to prepare yourself and the employee to let them go so that it doesn't come as a shock? And before we actually started recording this episode, we were talking about just terrible examples of how people are being let go, especially right now. And we're recording this in July of 22. And you just don't want to be one of those.

Judy (guest):
Yeah, it's very difficult. It depends on what industry you're in, because in some industries if you decided that you were ready to leave, you will leave that day. Because there's a lot of, again, like in IP, but there's also some very sensitive records or whatever.

Judy (guest):
So if I said to somebody in financial and banking and anything, if I said, "I'm going to leave." That would be the day that you left. They would walk you out at that point because they don't want you to have access to any of the things that are confidential and you have to understand that. If I was going to be having a conversation with somebody and I knew they wanted to leave, I would have to be very careful about how long they would stay. Some people will say, "Well, I would stay to help you train somebody", and that would be great. But again, it depends on the industry. It really, really does.

Judy (guest):
If I knew that somebody was planning to leave, I would sit down with them and I would say to them, "What's happening? What's going on? Tell me what's going on." And I would keep asking questions like unfolding those layers until they say to me, "I really think it's time for me to go." And I would say, "Great, let me help you go. Because what you don't want to do is you don't want them to destroy the culture that you have already created. because that's hard to rebuild."

Judy (guest):
I'll tell you a funny story. Again, I go back to the days when I was recruiting and I would do a group recruiting session first, and I would give everybody the overview of what it would be like to work. To sell insurance and so on and so forth, and what the potential was. Just a general overview. And if people liked it, then I would do one-on-ones with them.

Judy (guest):
And so at this one point, there were two gentlemen that came in. They didn't come in together, They didn't know each other, but they sat next to each other in the group session, and then they both wanted a second one, so they said, "Can we do our second one together?" I'm like, "No. No, I want to talk to you one on one." Anyways, so they both had like 25 years of sales, which is also not a good thing because they have their own bad habits. Like sometimes it's hard for the new people because they have no habits and sometimes it's bad for the ones that are veterans. I don't mean military veterans either.

Judy (guest):
Anyway,, I hired them both and the first week we did the training and everything and every day we'd have some kind of training and. They're supposed to be going out with somebody that was experienced, and so they did. So the first like three to five weeks, it's back and forth with people. Then they're on their own. They still have us to come to, but they're on their own.

Judy (guest):
So week one they're on their own. Nothing. Neither one wrote business. Week two, no business. Week three, no business. Week four, no business. Now, they're both family people. So what do you do if you're not bringing home anything to your family? So your spouse is going to get upset and you're going to be, you just don't want to do this. So I called them in and I said, "Tell me what's going on." And they said, "It's a different process. We just have to get our sea legs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." I'm like, I said, "Yeah, but you're in four weeks now. What can I do to help?" "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing."

Judy (guest):
Okay. Five, six, seven. Week eight, I call them in and I'm sitting in my office and the two of them are outside the door and one says to the other, "She thinks she's going to tell us what to do because she thinks she has the experience." I'm listening to this, right? So I walk out of my office and said, "Can I just bring you over somewhere? Because I want to show you something," and we go over to the credenza. . I said, "I just want you to look at all of these eagles. Can you tell me whose name is on them?" Now, I would never do this because I think it's obnoxious, but I did do it. I said, "Whose name is on it?" And they said, "Your name is on it." And I said, "Oh, okay. So can you tell me what they're about?" And I said, "Well, this whole side." They said, "This whole side is about your sales production. This whole side is about leadership." And I'm like, "Oh. Okay. One more thing, come on this side. Can you tell me what these are?" Again, obnoxious. But I did it, and again, it was all my stuff. Then I bring them in and I said, "So what's going on?" And they said, "Well, nothing. We're just learning things." And I said, "Well, we're going to learn something new today." And I took out the newspaper. I said, "We're going to find a job together for something that you both can do because this is not it."

Judy (guest):
That was the worst I've my behavior. I mean it was professional but it was horrible. But I couldn't do it any other way. And so I got them, I showed them some other jobs and I circled it for them and said, "You know, really go make some calls. Go find a job because this is not for you." And that's just how I did it. And yes, it was obnoxious. They weren't listening to me. They didn't think I had any experience. They didn't think like, "Why is she in that position? They should be in that position." So that was the worst.

Judy (guest):
But some of the other ones, I just sat down and I said, You know, let's figure this out. "Is this for you? Because if it isn't for you, let's find something else that is for you, because I really like you." or I would say, do you want to try it one more time? Do you want to go through this again? Let's give you some more training. Let me work with you one on one. Let's figure this out."

Judy (guest):
So I tried all different things, but when it was time to go, it was time to go. The hardest thing is the big producer though, when they feel like they know everything. And when it's time for them to go, that's the hard part because you have to be careful because they're very vocal and they'll make a big announcement in the whole office saying, "Well, yeah, I can't believe you're going to let me go. I write all your business." So you have to just be careful with that. So I try to do it like after hours or early morning.

Kathy (host):
What are some of the situations when you would have to take a look at the big producer that you have in your business on the side, and now it's the time to let them go because it's hard when someone brings in so much money and so much business into the business. Why would you let them go, and what are those signs that it's time to maybe start thinking about letting them go?

Judy (guest):
Well, the first thing they do is compromise your core values. There are certain things that the way that you do business and part of them are your core values, whether it's integrity or teamwork or kindness or generosity, whatever it is. When they are violating that and causing you to compromise it or asking you to compromise it, just to let them stay, it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. So that would be one thing.

Judy (guest):
The other thing is that everybody on your team watches everything that goes on. They do. They see everything that goes on. Even if they don't say anything, they're watching. And when they, when a top producer does crazy things and does things because he could do whatever he want or she wants, whatever they want, they can do because they're writing all this business and I'm allowing that. Why would the other people stay? If I'm allowing that behavior and they're a big producer, what are the people that aren't writing that much business? What are they going to get? They're not going to anything, so they might as well leave. So they cause everybody to leave. So all the good people that are hanging out with you and doing great things, it's not.

Judy (guest):
The other thing is they will hurt your bottom line. They will hurt you bottom line. The amount of production that they're going to take from you is going to hurt. But what happens if the business that they're writing is in good business? What happens if they're doing something that, again, core values like those things, but in the end, when you let a big producer go, your other people are, again, watching and they're thinking, "Whoa, if she let him go and he writes all that business, or he, she let her go and she's writing all that business in the long run, it's going to be the best thing because this next group of people is going to step up to the plate" and all of a sudden one of them's going to be the top producer. So the rest of the team will take notice and they will work with you because they know that you've chosen them over money, even if it feels like it's counterproductive.

Kathy (host):
And I feel like it's not just choosing them, it's also choosing your core values.

Judy (guest):
Yeah.

Kathy (host):
Meaning that you're signaling that you have not promised your core values over money. Because if eventually, once you start compromising your core values, money will always follow in a negative way.

Judy (guest):
Yep. They always say that you train people well enough so they can leave, but treat them well enough so they don't want to. So it's an interesting process, and I didn't like firing people. I didn't like letting people go, but sometimes that is just part of the whole puzzle. You want people to reach for the moon and the stars. You want them to have their dream and be able to get it. You don't want people to settle for being mediocre. And that's what we're seeing today in, in everywhere, that everybody is settling for being, "Okay, I'm okay. I don't need to do more than that." So when you're tired of being just okay, that's when you're really going to do amazing things.

Kathy (host):
And when you were preparing yourself. Let's talk about that a little bit because I'm really interested in that aspect too. When did you know that you had to let a couple of people go, it probably got easier over time as you were doing it, but what are some of the things that you did for yourself that made it easier for you to have those types of conversations?

Judy (guest):
I would have the conversation with myself. I would have the conversation and I would ask a question and see how it landed. Because I didn't want anybody to ever feel that I was being unprofessional or defensive. I would ask the question and just listen to it. I'd say it out loud because that's how I teach my kids. Whatever you're going to say, say it out loud. Because when you say it out loud, you can tell what's ridiculous and what isn't.

Kathy (host):
Yeah.

Judy (guest):
So I would ask a question. I would go, "Wait, that's a little bit too pointed." So I would just, I would role-play with. , because I didn't want to role-play with somebody else in my office. I didn't want people to know this before the person that I was getting rid of was going to know it.

Judy (guest):
But here's the other thing. I mean, I resigned from a position. I resigned from a corporate position. I made a lot of money. It was a big position, and I resigned. When I was planning to resign, I had to have a plan for myself, not what was going to happen later, but how I was going to do this because I didn't want to burn any bridges. So I had this whole speech in mind of what I was going to say and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And every time I went to say it, the person I needed to say it to was either out of the office or in a meeting or whatever, so I didn't get to say it, and he knew that I needed to talk to him. And after about a week or two, I was doing a big training and during a break on the training, he said, "Hey, I know you've been trying to talk to me. Can we talk now?" I'm like, "I'm in the middle of doing a training and now I'm going to quit?" And so I couldn't do that, because to me that would be unprofessional.

Judy (guest):
But I did it, like probably later that week and I just said to him, "It's time for me to go, so this is just not where I want to be." And he said, "Well, you know, can we give you more money?" All the things that when you don't want somebody to leave. And I said, "It's not about the money, it's about me. It is about me. It is not about the money." And it wouldn't matter what he had thrown at me because I didn't want to be there, so I left.

Judy (guest):
Did I have a plan for what I was going to do afterward? I did not. Not a smart wig. And when you resign, you resign from a lot of things like severance and everything else. You're not paid any of that because you've resigned, but I just felt like it was not where I needed to be, and that's what I would hope when people know that you're in the wrong place, say something. "I don't think I'm in the right place. I don't think this is going to be for me. And it's much easier than playing a game. "

Kathy (host):
Yeah, I agree. From personal experience, I had the same thing too. The last place before I started my own company, it was the same situation. I had a speech prepared and it just didn't work out because it just wasn't the core values did not resonate with me, and unfortunately, I didn't know that until I actually started working with the company, and I knew that I will not be a producer there. It's just not going to happen for me. I had no desire to go up the ranks in the company, what's their left than to just leave? Right? So I definitely resonate with that. And I think we both made a really, really good decision to leave.

Judy (guest):
I have never looked back and I'm sure you never have either. I've never looked back. Not, not once even, You know, like at the beginning when it's tough when you don't know what you're doing and whatever. I never said, "Oh, I wish I would've stayed ever." But I think that that sometimes there's a lot of people that know they shouldn't be where they are. And it's a hard thing and especially, and I coach a lot of women, and a lot of times they're in corporate positions and they want to be an entrepreneur or vice versa.

Judy (guest):
But when you're in a corporate position and they say to me, "I want to be an entrepreneur." The first thing I say is, "Are you leaving any money on the table?" Because if you worked hard for a bonus and the bonus is coming out and it's from last year, you should stay. You should stay, even if it's for a couple of weeks or a month or two months or whatever because you earn that. So you have to be careful when you, "Oh yeah, just leave because that's what I did." I just, "No, no, you don't do that. You don't do that."

Judy (guest):
So I'm very careful about my people. I want to make sure that they know what they're doing, and not to be so impulsive. Now, the only caveat to that is if you're getting. Doing what you're doing. There's nothing worth nothing at all. There's nothing worth it. And that's when you, that's when you go. But you do it professionally. You don't do it where you just leave everybody hanging. "Yeah, I'm not coming in anymore. I'm done." I just feel like the underlying theme is to know your people, know what you need to do, know what you want to do, and have a plan.

Kathy (host):
Yeah, Judy, this was absolute, it was a great conversation and I always ask this one question at the end of it. Every single guest gets to answer it, and this is the one tip that you think, the one step that people can take in their business right now if they're listening to have that good employee retention, what can they do in the next week or two to start implementing that?

Judy (guest):
Engage your people. Engage them in what you're doing. If there's a little project, a big project, if there's something going on in the community or whatever, bring your people in. Let them know that they are part of a team. It doesn't even have to be a family, but let them know they're part of a team and how valuable you think they are because they're the ones that are going to make or break you. They truly are.

Judy (guest):
As a group, consider all the people that are in sales. If they don't do sales, you don't have a business. I don't care what you do, where you are, I don't care what position you're in, you're selling. If you're a leader, you're selling your people on projects and commitment and if you are a salesperson, you're selling a product or a service.

Judy (guest):
So get your people involved, show them that you actually care about them, and I promise you that will change the retention. If they know you care about them, they're going to do anything in the world for you. If they know you care about them. If it's all about the money, money, money, money, money. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.

Kathy (host):
So Judy, where do people find you?

Judy (guest):
You can go to my website, which is sellinginaskirt.com. I'm all over social media. On LinkedIn, I'm Judy Hoberman. On almost everything else, I'm Selling On A Skirt. And you know, just reach out to me, connect with me. You never know who I know that you might want to know or you never know. I might have something that you want to download or whatever. So yeah, Selling in a Skirt

Kathy (host):
I love that. Awesome. Judy, thank you so much for coming on.

Judy (guest):
Thank you.

Kathy (host):
Thanks so much for joining us, and I hope that today's episode has given you tips on how to keep your top sales producers and let those who need to leave go. Next week, Nikki Rogers and I are going to talk about an important topic in growing businesses that often get overlooked by all the excitement and the growth activity happening, and this is how to manage change when the business expands and how to do that well.

Kathy (host):
Also, if you love this episode, you can find all the timestamps, show notes, blog posts, and links on my website, newcastlefinance.us/podcast. Also, before I go, as always, I do have a favor to ask. If you are listening to this on Apple podcast, if you could please go to the show and tap the number of stars that you think the show deserves because this helps other people find it and benefit from it too.

Kathy (host):
Thanks so much. Until next time.