Sales Managers Mastermind: Micro-Learning

The Race Car Analogy

Hey, it's Jody from Sandler Keystone. Today we're going to talk about cookbooks — the why behind them, and then the mechanics and best practices of how to build a cookbook for you and your team. In this video, I'm going to show you how not to crash into the wall before it's too late.

One of our longtime clients, Ken Harris, told me a story years ago that solidified the idea of the cookbook. He's a race fan, and he posed the question: when a car crashes into the wall on a race course, where does the car crash? Literally, of course, it crashes when it hits the wall. But Ken's point was that it really crashes earlier — because where the car is positioned on the track, the speed of the car, whether it's braking, what gear it's in, whether there are cars around it, there are a lot of factors that determine, way before it hits the wall, whether it's going to hit the wall or not.

Ken related that story to sales. If we're looking at the end of the first quarter, March 31st, and we say, "This was a bad quarter — we crashed into the wall," it basically didn't happen on March 31st. That was the lagging indicator. It happened earlier in the year, earlier in the quarter, or probably the year before. The behaviors and actions that a salesperson and a sales team were taking — those are what lead to successfully navigating the curve or hitting numbers for the first quarter. It doesn't happen at the end of the quarter. It happens way earlier.

Leading Indicators vs. Lagging Indicators

The idea of the cookbook is like the race car. We need to measure certain things earlier in the process to determine what success looks like. In a cookbook, if we're looking at things like the number of attempts to a new prospect or the number of new conversations, those early indicators are what determine success. Just like the race car, those early measurements — and the ability to adjust and tweak things earlier — help us avoid crashing into the wall.

One of the reasons a cookbook is so important to a manager is that it's really hard to coach and lead a sales team when you're only looking at lagging indicators. A lagging indicator would be a sale that was made or things sitting in the pipeline. There's a rule: manage behavior, not results. Most sales managers aren't managing the leading indicators — the number of new attempts, the number of new contacts, the number of new conversations. Those things that ultimately lead to sales are rarely managed, and managers end up focusing on the wrong end of the problem.

Lagging indicators are a poor measurement tool because it's really hard to diagnose what the real problem is. If I'm saying we don't have enough new business sales coming in, what does that actually mean? Does it mean we're not getting in front of enough new opportunities or new people? Does it mean we're not doing enough of the behaviors that lead to meetings? Are we not effectively converting a lead into a first meeting or a conversation? Unless we break down some of the leading indicators and identify where the issues might be, we keep having the problem of not really knowing why we're getting a certain result. The cookbook helps us diagnose and better manage those behaviors, and better figure out where the real issue is.

What a Cookbook Looks Like

To give you an idea of what a cookbook can look like, here's one that breaks down different kinds of behaviors — the number of attempts a salesperson makes, the number of new conversations they have, the number of connections they reach out to on LinkedIn, the number of new decision-makers they're pursuing in existing accounts. It's meant to simplify the activities and simplify the thinking, so we can very easily either do it or not do it when it comes to executing the behavior.

Each salesperson's cookbook is typically different. A salesperson focused on account growth — keeping and expanding existing accounts — is going to have different activities in their cookbook than someone hunting new business. There isn't one cookbook that fits the entire team, but the idea is that every salesperson has some kind of cookbook.

One of the common pushbacks you get as a manager from veteran salespeople is, "This feels like micromanagement. If I was a new salesperson, I'd get it — but I've been doing this a long time." I agree — I don't want this to be a micromanagement tool. What it's meant to do is help even veteran salespeople remember that there are certain activities we need to continue doing that we might forget, even though we know we should do them.

Here's an example. If I have a room full of veteran salespeople and I ask, "How many of you feel that one of the highest-value ways to get in front of someone is through a referral or an introduction?" almost every hand in the room goes up. So I'll say, "Okay — you agree it's probably the gold standard for getting in front of a new conversation?" They say yes. Then I ask, "When's the last time you proactively asked for a referral or an introduction? How often do you actually do that?" That same room looks at me with a blank stare. I'll say, "You know how important referrals are, yet you regularly don't ask for them. You're a smart veteran who knows what to do — and you still don't do it consistently. It's not that you don't know about it. You've just got a lot going on."

So view the cookbook not as a micromanagement tool, but as a self-management tool. It's the reminder that says, "I need to ask for a referral this week, because I made a commitment to myself to do it once a week, or once a month, or whatever it might be." The cookbook is the self-management tool — the reminder for salespeople at all levels to execute the activities that all make sense, but that we probably won't do with the regularity or deliberateness needed to succeed in selling unless we have some form of accountability.

The Behavior-Attitude-Technique Triangle

One of the core visuals we use to keep our thinking simple is the Behavior-Attitude-Technique triangle — the success triangle. We talk a lot about the importance of attitude and mindset in selling. We also talk about technique — using the right words in the right way, the right methodology. For example, on a cold call, what's the technique to engage someone quickly in a conversation? What's the mindset that gets us past call reluctance to even make the call?

But the behavior side of the success triangle is really about the cookbook. It's about having the behaviors, actions, and activities that get us to a place where we can even apply the technique. Attitude gets you out of bed in the morning. Behavior is the activity you do that actually puts you in position to use the technique.

One suggestion I'd offer you as a leader: have your salespeople develop their cookbook with you. Bring their thoughts and your thoughts together and let them merge. If you try to hand people a cookbook, they will push back — in my experience, if they don't own it, they're not going to do it. But if they come up with it entirely on their own without your input, it might be constructed in a way where you can look at it and say, "I don't think those are the right activities, or the right quantities of activities, to lead to success." The key is to co-create the cookbook, get buy-in from your salespeople, and then have them begin the activities, track it, and fine-tune it over time.