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Summary
In this episode of the Stronger Sales Team Podcast, host Ben Wright delves into the vast realm of B2B sales management, sharing invaluable insights and actionable strategies with his special guests, Darcy Smyth and Steve Claydon from Outbound. The show outlines the dynamic interplay between personal development, team leadership, and the utilization of gamification to enhance sales effectiveness.
Ben Wright initiates the discussion by examining the common hurdles faced by new sales leaders, particularly those transitioning from being top-performing salespeople to guiding a team. As Darcy Smyth and Steve Claydon articulate, these leaders often grapple with unexpected challenges, from implementation gaps to mental health considerations. The conversation transitions into how businesses contend with global pressures, emphasizing the need to be creative and efficient in light of evolving AI and automation technologies. The guests share their astute approach to balancing human connection with automated processes, underscoring the significance of authentic relationships in the current business landscape.
About the Guest:
Darcy Smyth is recognized for his decade-long expertise in sales, training, and mentoring, specializing in understanding the intricacies of the human mind and consumer behavior. Currently, Darcy co-leads Outbound, undertaking new and ongoing team responsibilities. With a fascination for golf, he is also a dedicated father.
Steve Claydon, the strategist and design maven behind Outbound, mirrors Darcy's tenure in the industry. Steve's role is pivotal in assisting organizations worldwide to shatter their monthly sales goals. Apart from his professional ambit, Steve is an enthusiast of helicopter simulations and inventing card and board games, underpinning the fun motif of Outbound. He's also a family man, taking pride in his role as a husband and father of three, including his newly born, Sammy.
Key Takeaways:
â Transitioning from a top salesperson to a sales leader presents distinctive challenges, including gaps in implementation, leadership skills, and mental well-being.
â Doing more with less has become a pervasive theme in businesses, pushing leaders to innovatively leverage systems and automation without compromising human-driven relationship building.
â Personal development and continual learning are vital for sales leaders, which can be enriched through pursuing diverse interests and staying curious beyond their industry.
â The importance of setting goal-orientated strategies and structuring learning into one's weekly routine to ensure sustained professional growth.
â New sales methodologies, like social selling and managing remote teams, demand adaptation and a forward-thinking mindset from sales leaders.
Time Stamps:
0:00 Intro
1:15 Guest Introduction
3:07 Outbound
5:11 Challenges of New and Emerging Sales Leaders
8:23 Training Sales leaders
12:37 Coaching
14:44 Business Wide Challenges
19:30 Doing More With Less
23:15 Learning for Emerging Sales Leaders
28:19 Guestâs Socials
29:09 Outro
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Transcript
Intro
Hi, everyone. I'm Ben Wright, successful entrepreneur, corporate leader and expert sales coach to some of the most talented people our amazing planet has to offer. You're listening to the Stronger Sales Teams podcast, where we bring together and simplify the complex world of B2B sales management to help the millions of sales managers worldwide build, motivate, and keep together highly effective sales teamsâŠteams who grow revenue and make their businesses actual profits.
Along the journey, we also provide great insights and actionable steps to managing your personal health. A happy and productive you is not only better for your teams, but everyone around you. So if you're an ambitious Sales Leader who wants to build the highest performing and engaged teams, Stronger Sales Teams is right where you need to be.
Ben Wright:
Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real world and practical advice to help you develop superpowered B2B sales teams. So this is a podcast today I've been looking forward to for quite some time. Didn't meet Steve, but I met Darcy from Outbound about six weeks ago. We had a fantastic conversation. It was one of those conversations. Shorts, t-shirt, thongs. Are those Australian listeners in a beautiful place up here in Noosa. We said, right, let's get together, let's have a podcast and see where we go. So Darcy, he's been obsessedâŠin fact, Darcy and Steve, I'd say both have that very highly driven type of personality. But Darcy himself, he's been very much obsessed with one thing more than probably anything else since the age of ten, and that's the human mind. So for Darcy, he's fascinated by why we do what we do and why we buy what we buy. He's been working in the sales, training and mentoring field for over ten years. So there's a fair track record there now for Darcy and for his business Outbound, he takes care of all new and existing teams. He's also a father. He has a one year old, which for me, changes perspective on just about everything and brings a new way of operating to your fore. So his daughter, one year old, now, any spare time he is spending with her, but then devoting it to the golf course, which he tells me is going nowhere.
So Steve, on the other hand, he's the designer, all right? He's the behind the scenes brains and drive and strategist at Outbound. He's also ten years or so in the business, and he's been working really closely with sales teams and organizations across the globe across that time, with his core focus being to help them break monthly sales records. Right. That's what we're here for as sales leaders and sales trainers to help get results. So in Steve's spare time, this one's a little bit different. Right? He likes flying his helicopter simulator. We're going to have to talk about that, Steve. And creating his own card and board games, very much the Outbound Game way. He's also a husband and father with three kids, so he didn't learn his lesson three times, including one new addition, which is Sammy, who's six months old.
So, Darcy and Steve, welcome to the podcast. We're going to do a couple of episodes together, but please tell me about Outbound, why it started, why you love it, and how things are going.
Steve Claydon:
Yeah, awesome. So great to be on the pod, mate. I'm looking forward to this chat. I've been looking forward to it for some time. But outbound is essentially a gamification platform that we've been working on for the last three years. Myself and Darcy in a background with sales training, growing sales teams, growing revenue, we found a couple of gaps over that ten years. One was the dreaded implementation gap that always happens where you get motivated, you have some big vision, some big goals, and then two weeks later it somehow just disappears and it's gone out of the brain. Or you could do some great training and you pick up some really great strategies and tactics and then again three months later, like, how are you going with that? And we have this forgetting nature about ourselves. So that was one big gap. But then the other thing is we both had experienced kind of burnout and grief and the mental health challenges that comes with growing sales and growing business. And so when me and Darcy joined forces about five years ago, we were like, let's do things differently. And there has to be an element of wellbeing, health, fun in what we're doing, because why else should we be doing it? And so we figured out that the arcade was the only place on planet Earth where motivation wasn't a problem. And so we were like, why don't we build a workforce's arcade and turn sales activities and goal setting and achieving those things into a whole lot of fun.
Ben Wright:
Awesome. I like that piece around the arcade being the place where we can have a whole lot of fun. No doubt about it. If we can bring fun into the workplace, it changes the dynamic completely. And there's lots of different ways we can do it. Gamification being one that I really like. Okay, cool. Well, today we're going to jump into a few topics. We're going to talk about leadership. We're going to talk about everything, sales training and beyond. So why don't we jump into it for our listeners? It's going to be a little bit different today. This is going to be more of a conversation. We're going to talk to each other, and there'll be questions flying left, right and center. So enjoy these series of episodes.
All right, well, let's get things started, gentlemen. For me, one of the great topics I like talking about early on is challenges that leaders are facing, particularly sales leaders. What are you seeing at a personal skill set level, the challenges that new and emerging leaders are facing at the moment?
Darcy Smyth:
Ben, we've been asked this question, actually a bit on podcasts, and the answer remains the same, which is that a lot of the time, sales is a really interesting field in the way this happens. Ben, is that a lot of the time, sales leaders and managers have been promoted to that role because they were great at sales and weren't necessarily great sales leaders or natural sales leaders. No kid goes to school wanting to grow up one DaY and become a sales leader. I don't think I've ever heard a kid say it, and I don't think we ever will. So it doesn't seem to be this natural, organic, aligned career path that people want to choose for themselves. Typically, people actually even just find themselves falling into sales as it is. And then the thing that happens is they get good at sales. And then so someone comes along and says, hey, you're the best one in this team. We need a new manager. We need a new sales leader. I reckon it's got to be you. And so what can happen is they find themselves in that role, and overwhelm is normal in any sort of leadership role. But I believe there's a strong sense of all encompassing overwhelm and, really inability and a lack of skill set to actually lead a sales team when it's required in so many sales leaders that we meet. Of course, you always have the natural sales leaders that are great. They're brilliant. There's always the other side of the coin, but majority of the time, you find a sales leader who's sitting there going, how did I get here? And what can I do? Which is why conversations like this can be so helpful.
Ben Wright:
Yeah. And you know what? I was one of those guys, right? So I was doing really well, got promoted, came in off the field, and my first week as a sales leader was just toxic. I think I had one threatened to resign. I had a mutiny brewing, and I'm sitting back going, oh my god, what have I walked into. But I definitely agree with you. Right. You just don't get the training you need when you're thrown into a sales leadership role, because whilst businesses will prepare you for that, they generally won't put the time into you until, at a bare minimum, you're into the role. And what I see happen so often is the unintentional attitude that says, do you know what? They were really good at selling. They worked it out, right? They didn't know how to sell. Just as you were saying, Darcy, they came in and they accidentally fell into selling. They'll accidentally fall into leadership and they'll work it out, too. They're paid well, they know what they're doing. Let's let them run and see where they get to. And the reality is, for me, moving from being an individual contributor to a leader or manager of others is the single hardest career step you can take - the single hardest across what for most people is a 50, 40 to 50 year career, right? So in 4 years, your hardest step is from individual contributor to leader of others. And it's probably the time when you get least support. You're too low in the organization to be having your own executive coach. You're too far into the organization to be in a graduate program or be having a buddy. So you're kind of left to flounder a bit. So, yeah, for me, it's really difficult and it's actually harder at the moment because the amount of face to face selling you're doing is reducing. And for me, it's so much harder to lead via video and via a hybrid work model than it is face to face, because you just don't get to pick up all the cues you have in the room unless you have people like yourselves that are really open and able to express that. So, yeah, very tough time to be a sales leader. But, gee, those who get it right, wow, they're going to set themselves up for some serious success moving to the future. We, as businesses, right? We both train leaders. We train salespeople. We train leaders as well. What are you guys doing to try and help leaders through this pretty difficult patch?
Steve Claydon:
Yeah, it's kind of like a combination of two things, right? Like that jump from individual contributor âI'm successful in salesâ somewhat you can be a little bit of a lone wolf at times and be successful in your role, particularly if you're like a full stack salesperson doing quite well. And then you go, hey, leader, CEO points you out and goes, g'day, Ben. You're pretty good at sales, mate. Go lead these team of five or ten now. And so there's two parts to that. It's the people part of it, where now you're not just responsible for yourself and your own number, you're responsible for other people's numbers as well. So how do I relate to those people and engage with those people and influence those people towards some sort of vision? So that's super hard to do, but then you also have to develop an insane level of business acumen. And so there's this leap of into leadership and sales leadership, where it's not just about hitting sales numbers, it's how it's all connected to the other parts of the business, the overall growth of the company, the market conditions. Like, there's so much that you now have to be aware of. So Darcy's background in psychology, he kind of really kind of focuses more on the people side of things, helping people understand the workings of the mind and how they relate to themselves and how they relate to others, where I more help them with the lead measures that will affect the lag measures and that business acumen side of things. Like what are the strategies you can actually put into place that are in your control that you can go ahead and willingly do that we can predict with a high level of accuracy will get some sort of outcome because leaders are often just so nervous in their day to day role because they don't know what's coming around the corner they've got responsibility for them and their team, and they're like, oh, wonder what Q1 next year looks like. And so that makes them feel massively out of control. So by giving them focus on the lead measures, it makes a massive difference, so that they just can know what to actually do.
Darcy Smyth:
We see a ton of that as well, don't we, Steve? Sales Leaders will come to us a lot of the time and almost shamefully admit they've focused far too much on the lag measure and thought that was all that really mattered when at the end of the day, the lag measure was completely out of their control and all they could control was the things they could control, which is more of the lead measure activity.
Ben Wright:
Picking up from you two, and I quite like it. Right. We've got two very different people here. But Darcy is that mindset approach. Steve, you're that broader goal setting approach, right. And understanding that there is a lot to goal setting. You start high, you break it down to next level and to your next level, and there's things you control and things you can't. And for me, the third piece is probably having a really robust coaching model. So you know what your go to style is with your team to coach them. Because if you're worried about managing and managing only, you can have the best mindset and you can have the great goals. But if you can layer in that coaching as well, then I just think you hit so much higher peaks. I guess there's three very different opinions. We should start a business, guys. Three different, very different ways of doing things. But, yeah, when you get those three right, more often than not, you've got an emerging sales leader who, if they continue to do those things well, and I love that saying. Older person says to younger person, they're both horse riders. They say, âI've forgotten more about horse riding than you are yet to learn.â Right. And so that ability, if you can take everything they've learned and build it into some nice models, mindset, goals and coaching, that you can come out pretty powerful.
Darcy Smyth:
Ever seen coaching go wrong, Ben?
Ben Wright:
We've heard the saying âright time and right placeâ. For me, coaching goes wrong when it's at the wrong time. So when you sit down and Ben sits down with Darcy and says, âHey, Darcy, why haven't you come to work better presented?â Or âwhat's getting in the way of you coming to work better presented?â Or âwhy haven't you hung that painting behind you?â Right. We had a bit of a laugh about that today. Darcy goes boom and explodes and launches into Ben. And then Ben leaves the conversation and says, â What the hell was all that about?â Right? And then Ben finds out from Steve down the track that Darcy's got a newborn, one year old, not sleeping, is struggling to get to work. And everything in his mind said, take a day off. But he didn't want to let the business down. So he got here, and he got here as best as he could.
It wasn't perfect, but Ben failed to ask, âHey, Darcy, is everything okay?â before he had that coaching conversation. Yeah, it's about right time, right place. Absolutely. How about yourselves? What do you see? Work and not work? From a coaching point of view.
Darcy Smyth:
Would agree with that. Ben, I've spent a lot of time in the coaching and consulting industry. That's where a lot of my background comes from, like actually training up other coaches and consultants. And there is this because it can be such fascinating work and people can fall in love with it so easily, and it can seem like the answer to everyone's prayers when they first learn it, they go out into the market and think that everyone should and wants to hear what they have to say when only probably less than 1% of people probably stick their hand up and go, I want to coach right now and I'm ready to be coached as we speak. So, yeah, I think a lot of people in the coaching field can get themselves stuck in a bit of a rut there or just let themselves in conversations they had no right being in.
Ben Wright:
Yeah. Advice isn't always welcome. Right, yeah.
Darcy Smyth:
Well said. Well said. Yeah.
Steve Claydon:
I've done a bit of sort of study around this in the gamification design part and game theory. I've had really stretched my thinking and learned as much as I can in that space as we're doing what we're doing. But there's an interesting part of game theory that says âa game is only a game when it incorporates voluntary playâ. And we've taken that principle and applied it to how we sell and how we train and how we coach and how we even onboard people into our platform, it has to incorporate voluntary play. So we only actually spend time and interested in working with people that voluntarily puts themselves into a position to go. Yeah, I'm actually up for this conversation and everyone else that doesn't there's no hard feelings at all. And it's been a really good sort of line in the sand of like, yeah, sometimes you give advice that isn't welcome because the person never actually wanted it in the first place.
Ben Wright:
Yeah. Being forced to drink from the trough or drink the kool aid. Right. Just doesn't work. Yeah. So that voluntary piece, I find, is really open generally when people are talking about personal skills. But for me, where it gets a little bit involuntary is where you have challenges at a business level. These are challenges that you can't control. So there comes a bit of a reluctance sometimes to actually embrace on what you're going to do about them. And that's something I'd love to talk about today, is some of those challenges we're seeing at a business wide level.Right. So we've stepped above the personal challenges, but we're jumping to a business level. And we can call them voluntary or we can call them ones that you have less control over. But what are some of the things you guys are seeing just hanging out now at a business level that sales leaders have to grapple with?
Steve Claydon:
We spend a lot of time with that sort of scale up part of the market. Right. And so the number one thing we're seeing that they're getting pressure from at a business level is this idea of trying to do more with less. So as the world is being bombarded with more and more AI technology, more and more automation, more and more ability to do things at will all the time. Growth targets are coming in and they're getting higher and higher and higher. But the resource to do it in is getting less and less and less. Seeing companies not necessarily wanting to hire a whole bunch of people, it's more on the opposite end of like, well, how do we continue to grow as a business with what we've got currently or even with less? That is involuntary. That is a kettle of fish to try and wade through to go, how do we actually solve for this, and how do we do this well and meaningfully and with purpose, and how do we keep the people engaged in that, and how do we make sure we don't burn people out, and how do I make sure I don't get burned out? It's pretty big.
Ben Wright:
Yeah. And it's a bit of a dirty word at the moment. Selling. It seems to, particularly since COVID came in to have really, for me, created a bit of stigma around, if you're selling, you're not creating value. And for me, I don't agree with it. Right. I think both can exist very harmoniously together. But when you're being asked to do more with less, the default behaviors tend to come to the fore, and the default behaviors are often going to be. Right. We got to close fast. Closing fast doesn't always create value. Right.
So I did a research piece on this earlier in the year. We're still 2023, aren't we just. Well, we're recording this in 2023. This is coming out at the very start of 2024, when we're all on Christmas holidays and Darcy and Steve are trimming their beard. Right? Or actually, no, Steve, you're doing your helicopter simulator, which I am going to ask you about. We'll get to it. But for me, at the end of that research project, we had a few things come out. So this was primary resources. So we did some interviews globally and secondary.
Right. We went out to a whole lot of publications and synthesized all that data that was out there to see what some of the key challenges were. Talent management came out clearly number one in what we did. And I think that relates to the âdoing more with lessâ type of piece is keeping people engaged, particularly in a hybrid working environment, training them, getting the right people into the business, getting bums on seats. Right. Budgets are being held a lot more tightly now. Right. I don't see too many sales roles that have had, what are our last three years of inflation? Seven, eight and four. I think it was something like that, or whatever that is. Right. That's a cumulative of plus 20%, heading near 25%. Salaries haven't risen 25%, I don't think, in the selling game over that period. Right. So talent management definitely coming up as number one.
And the others, building trust with customers. And that's really hard. Right. When we talk about voluntary and involuntary, when you can't get face to face with people, it is harder to build trust generally, particularly in the B2B world. If you're a tactical business, that's low value selling, quite different. Right. But building trust with customers has become harder and harder. And I think part of that is because there's the age of information, there's just so much out there that so easy to get confused.
Customer retention was the third one that came out of that, keeping your customers on board. That wasn't just about them liking your product. It was actually about delivery, which was quite constrained during COVID and businesses haven't still recovered out of that. Sometimes out of a Sales Leader's hands.
This one, I really like social selling. We spoke about this before we got together. This was number four in the top challenges is social selling is a beast. You can spend so much time on it and get so little return, but on the other side of it now, you flip the coin and something can go viral, and away you go. But if you don't have a level of social proof now as a salesperson, then it's getting hard. Yeah, and as leaders, we don't always have businesses signing up to that. Some businesses won't support or many businesses won't support a leader doing their own podcast. And I look at them and go, what an amazing way to build out your own. Yeah, absolutely.
And the last one that came out of it was tech, which, Steve, you jumped onto as well, is AI is changing things, but as soon as you get set with something, it changes on you again. And for me, I mean, there's a whole piece around tech, which we might talk about in a minute, but it's really difficult to manage how you use tech, particularly when most businesses will have some really rigid requirements as to when you can and can't bring in tech. Right. You can't just bring in outbound. Right. There's a process that you have to go through. Great game. And you should bring in outbound. Right. But there's a process you need to go through to do it. Yes. Okay. So how are you guys handling doing more with less? What are your ways around it from your leadership point of view.
Steve Claydon:
Yeah, we've been really heavily focusing on system creation, system design for the last..what would it be, Darcy, maybe a year or even more, 18 months, where it's really like helped hone our level of thinking as a leader to go, well, if we were to design a system or a process around this, what would that actually look like to begin with? And then how much of that can we actually automate or how much of it can we leverage? So freeing up our time to add in that human element again, because this is the other thing we've found so quickly as you automate, so much easier now. And there's a platform for a platform for a platform to pretty much do everything. It's unreal. The speed and access to technology is insane. We're hitting this level now, though, where the opposite effect is occurring again, where we got so much information, there's so much AI that can be generated, there's so much automation that can be done. The barrier to entry is like zero. So it's breaking trust with the client base. So we're really thinking about how do we automate those tasks that are non damaging to relationship, let's put it that way. Because you can automate LinkedIn comments, you can automate mass emails out, you can automate nearly everything now, but it's breaking trust with the audience, so we're really trying to free up how do we become more human in our outreach? By freeing up all of the task admin stuff in the back end that we can just get a robot to do. So we're very much focusing on partnerships and freeing up time for partnerships.
Ben Wright:
It's almost that old saying, and I don't know how old this makes me sound, but were you guys ever taught you use email to confirm, but phone or face to face to discuss?
Steve Claydon:
Yeah, that's spot on.
Ben Wright:
And it's almost like AI is the new email in that respect. Right? If there's unlikely to be offense taken, if you don't need to worry about emotions or opinions, then great, flick on AI, flick on automation. But if it's going to need a level of personality, then let's do it the old way. For me, the old way has actually been the way for so long, is building relationships. Yeah, I like that approach. It's great. And look, I don't think I'm that different, right? For me, it's get your goals right. It's the number one thing. It hasn't changed. I'm almost 41. In fact, a couple of days I'm 41. I'm a 21 year sales career, I have not seen anything change around goal setting in 21 years. It's know where you want to go. Get it right, build out your playbook that comes around it, work out how you're going to measure it so that everyone's going to buy in and then get a learning program behind it, that hasn't changed. That fundamental principle was there 21 years ago and 21 years ago I didn't have a mobile phone. In fact, I was on a BlackBerry. I just got a BlackBerry. Just got introduced when I came into business. Right. So there was noâŠ
Darcy Smyth:
You're old.
Ben Wright:
Yeah. Thanks, Darcy. When you're 41, mate, I'll give you a text. Yeah. Let's see how you're going then. I want to see if your beard has still got that beautiful, youthful look in it.
Darcy Smyth:
No, you know, I'm joking, Ben, because when I did meet Ben, he told me his age and I couldn't believe it. I bet you didn't believe it then as well when he just mentioned it. Steve, if you just told me you were 31, Ben, I'd believe it. For those listening to the pod that haven't actually, that are only listening and not seeing the visual, it's worth checking out. It is worth checking out.
Ben Wright:
Yeah. Well, let me tell you, you got to work a lot harder to stay in good shape come 41. We are recorded. I was at my desk before 07:00 this morning and exercise was well and truly done. Yeah. Cool. So, hey, last thing that I'm really keen to hear from you guys about for kind of throw over to you a bit more is new and emerging leaders. What's your advice on personal accountability around their learning? Right. How can they go about learning themselves and not necessarily relying on the dulcet tones of Darcy and Steve to help them become ace at what they do?
Darcy Smyth:
I've been doing a bit of diving into this concept a bit lately in terms of what's important to learn and what's valuable to learn. It's actually something that Steve taught me back wow, seven years ago, I think it was. Do you remember the concept, Steve, of the turnip farmer? Is it turnip farmer? Is that what you use? An example was the best learning that you can do sometimes exists way outside of the field that you work in. So the question becomes what can a turnip farmer teach you about sales leadership? What can the way you make coffee teach you about how to work with your team? What could the way that a pen runs out of ink or the speed at which it happens, what can that teach you about the speed at which your team might actually leave you. Things like this. I'm just making it completely up. I'm just trying to draw ridiculous examples. But this whole idea of I'm a sales leader or I'm in business, and the only books I should be reading are sales, leadership and business books, I think is so outdated because learning, at its core, is meant to be fun. One of my favorite quotes ever is âanyone who doesn't see that education and entertainment are the same thing, doesn't know the first thing about either of them.â Meaning whenever you're entertained, it should be educating you. Whenever you're being educated, it should be entertaining. And so often I think people get themselves stuck in this, like, oh, I'm sort of a bit bored and a bit stale with my learning. I don't know if there's anything more I can learn in sales. Great. What do you want to learn about? Well, I'm actually kind of really interested in woodworking. Interested in smoking a barbecue. It's like, great, go learn that, because it'll actually teach you a ton about sales, and there'll be metaphors and analogies everywhere that you can actually apply to your role, and you'll have a ton of fun learning it.
Golf is the greatest teacher that any of us have in business, but I've never seen anyone hit a pitching wedge inside a co-working office space. So, yeah, that's my opinion. I think that the learning can happen from anywhere and everywhere, and it should. And you should go diving headfirst into it, even though it doesn't feel right to be doing so.
Ben Wright:
It's the c word, right? Curiosity. Curiosity drives active learning. At any point in the day, I think I learn as much from those who I have nothing to do with on a work point of view as I do for those that professionally. And I haven't seen someone bring a pitching wedge into an office before either, Darcy. But I've certainly had a few stories about something not dissimilar. I'm going to add a bit of my structured approach to that. Right. Everyone that knows me knows I'm pretty structured. For me, I have a really easy platform or a process around learning. Its first one is pick how much time you want to spend on it, and I've always worked off 10%. If you can get 10% of your week baked into learning, bake that into your week, then you are absolutely on a winner. Most people look at me like I have a pitching wedge in my hand and I'm coming at them right when I say 10% and they go four to 5 hours, are you for real, man? What are you talking about? Pick the topics you want to learn on. Actually, just sit down and write it. Because when you're aware of something, like when you're going out to buy an E.V., I had a Tesla when they first came out. It's amazing how many I saw on the road right when they first came out. But when you're looking for that car, right, it's everywhere. Pick the topic you want to learn about, because you'll find opportunity. And particularly if you're curious, you'll find opportunity when you go past a turnip farm to learn about that, right? Put your mind to it.
Next thing is pick your modalities. So for me, 4 hours a week is easy because I spend about as you get old, Darcy, you need to spend a bit more time in the gym rather than just cardio. I'll spend 2 hours a week in the gym. Straight away I've got 2 hours done of my learning. Easy, right? Because I put podcasts on and away I go. So I'll pick the modalities that work for me. I'm less of a reader, more of a doer and a listener and a watcher. So if you pick your modalities when you're commuting to and from the office, most people can knock out half their training just from a little bit of habit change. And for me, the last couple of area is structurally is you make it non negotiable. So you diarize it. What gets measured gets done. But I go the same with a diary, right? Plan to succeed. What is it âfailing to plan, is planning to failâ.
And then the last bit is just surround yourself with help, with good help. There are so many people that want to be mentors that want to help. There's your paid versions, there's your colleagues, right? You build that out as a structure and you layer it in with a good old serum of curiosity. And I think you're flying when it comes to learning.
Darcy Smyth:
I like what you're saying there, Ben, about the modalities. You're so right. I'm a listener as well. And I got an hour's sleep last night because I was rocking my daughter to non-sleep. So that means I had 8 hours, literally, of listening to podcasts just last night. You just take any chance you can get, especially with the ability to learn whilst you're on the go. These days, there's no excuse. It's great. It's a great world to be in.
Ben Wright:
Well, done for fronting up, right. Because we genuinely, it had a six in front when we were all logging onto our computers this morning. So well done and thank you.
So, Darcy and Steve, thank you. Have loved our discussions. Right. For me, some really cool stuff I'm going to take out of it. Not just about turnip farmers and sandwiches and pitching wedges. Right. But also things like AQ. But more importantly, right. How important it is as leaders to be on a growth journey that doesn't stop. I think that's a theme that's really come through. So for those listening, where can they find out more about both of you?
Steve Claydon:
Yeah, we're big on LinkedIn so feel free to search. Steve Clayden C.L.A.Y.D.O.N. and Darcy Smyth. S-M-Y-T-H. We've both got those weird last names where you have to always explain that it's got a D in it and that it's not Smith, it's a Smyth with a Y. Come hang out with us there. But if you want to check out what we're doing with the gamification platform for sales teams, just head to outbound game. Plenty of quality content there. There's an outbound KPI calculator that you can use where we've extracted all the data of the thousands of games we've had running through our platform. Give you some insights on where you should be plotting your own KPIs and outbound sales activities. So yeah, go check it out. There's plenty of good resources there for you to dive into.
Ben Wright:
Awesome. It's been great today, gentlemen and everyone else, thank you for listening. And until next time, keep living in a world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can achieve.
Steve Claydon:
Cheers.
Darcy Smyth:
Thanks, Mate.
E46 Shortening the Leadership Growth Curve with Darcy Smyth and Steve Claydon
