Build a Real Revenue Engine (Leak-Proof) with Marcus Chan

Organizations lose millions by throwing top-of-funnel leads at a broken sales process, particularly when win rates are low due to poor discovery and ineffective frontline sales leadership. Marcus Chan emphasizes that before seeking more pipeline, companies must audit their existing data and call recordings to uncover the root causes of their revenue leaks, which often stem from confusing qualification with genuine discovery. To fix these leaks, leaders must transition from relying on individual heroics to building robust systems. This involves replacing rigid scripts with flexible mental frameworks, such as the POWERFUL and RIM frameworks, and ensuring continuous reinforcement through "real-plays" with managers instead of peer-to-peer role plays. Scaling a revenue engine requires a massive shift in a leader's time horizon. Instead of thinking quarter-to-quarter, effective sales leaders plan three to five years in advance. Tackling foundational issues like hiring profiles, onboarding processes, and leadership development dramatically reduces turnover and ensures long-term, predictable growth.

Discussed in this episode

• Why organizations waste millions trying to fix top-of-funnel problems when their close rates are abysmal.
• The critical difference between a script that dictates verbatim responses and a framework that provides a mental model.
• Why BANT is an effective qualification tool but a terrible methodology for leading discovery calls.
• The danger of promoting top-performing reps to management without teaching them essential leadership fundamentals.
• How true sales transformation programs start with deep-dive audits rather than cookie-cutter training workshops.
• The reason role-playing with peers fails and why reps must practice 'real-plays' with challenging sales leaders.
• How a 157-day ramp time forces sales leaders to plan their hiring and headcount up to three years in advance.
• Why pipeline coverage and high activity volume are misleading metrics that distract from true sales effectiveness.

Episode highlights

1. 0:00 — The $10M revenue leak
2. 2:30 — Identifying poor frontline leadership
3. 5:15 — Debunking the top-of-funnel myth
4. 7:45 — Discovery vs. qualification traps
5. 10:30 — Systems over heroics: Scripts vs frameworks
6. 13:00 — The POWERFUL framework explained
7. 16:20 — Training vs true system transformation
8. 21:10 — Transitioning to executive leadership
9. 24:40 — The 157-day ramp time reality
10. 28:00 — Rapid fire myths and KPIs

Key takeaways

• Fix low win rates before buying more top-of-funnel pipeline.
• Never confuse a qualification checklist with genuine problem discovery.
• Teach flexible mental frameworks instead of rigid verbatim scripts.
• Stop role-playing with peers; do real-plays with tough managers.
• Shift your leadership time horizon from quarters to 3-5 years.

Transcript

I see the most common which is sales is a numbers game. And to be very specific, they mean numbers by driving more activity. If you can't close what you have, you need to do a root cause analysis as to why that is. Like, is that ICP?

Is that because your reps, like there is a reason. People are coming in the funnel and you can't start you can't be thinking in months or years at a point. You actually need to be thinking like three to five years in advance. Welcome back to another episode of the Bridge the Gap podcast powered by Revenue Reimagine and apparently my dog Cooper in the background.

Today's guest is Marcus Chan, founder and CEO of Venley Consulting, Wall Street Journal best-selling author and the creator of the revenue engine OS, which is a system designed to stop revenue leaks and drive predictable growth. He's led a $195 million sales organizations, been recognized as a top sales influencer by Salesforce and has helped over 700 clients recover nearly a billion dollars of hidden revenue. We're going to talk about systems versus heroics, what B2B leaders get wrong about scaling, and how to finally build revenue engines that don't crack under pressure. Marcus Chan, welcome to the show, sir.

Hey, what's up? I'm pumped to be here. Thanks for having me on, gentlemen. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for joining. Hopefully my internet works this time. Um, it did not work last time and hopefully Adam stops coughing, so, we'll see if if those two things work, we can have a show. That sounds good.

There's a there's a mute button. I can cough as much as I want, as long as I hit the mute button. So, let's kick this off with the $10 million leak. Like, where are most organizations leaking millions of dollars each year?

Hmm. So, obviously every org's a little bit different, but I'll talk about the most common ones, right? I like that. So, I think the first big common one is actually just you'll see very simply low win rates.

And to be specific, win rates based off discovery to actually close deals, not off proposals to close, right? So, I think the a big thing I see across the board, right? I'll give you I'll give you I'll give you a great example, you know, working with this organization, they have 100 plus reps. They actually had reached out initially, said, hey, Marcus, listen, um, we got a great orb, but we need more pipeline.

Like, we're super worried about the we need more pipeline. We just need to like Like the team, like we need to like, we need to bug more meetings, we just need more qualified ops. I'm like, yeah, okay, that sounds good. Let me just let me do a deep let me look at your data first.

Let me look at everything first. Right? We go in once look I look at the close rate, look at the win rate, it's like 8%. So you can't close the opps you have, but let's give you more.

Right. So I'm like, I'm like, how does that make sense to want to pile, like, spend more money on ads, hire more BDRs, train them up more, get more book meetings, and not even close them on the back end. And of course, I was talking to the BDR leaders, they're like, they're all pissed because they're like, hey, my opps are getting qualified, you know, they're not getting closed. The reps, the AEs don't follow up.

So there was a huge leak just in that simple piece right there. That's probably number one. It was like how how effectively can you drive up the win rate, which oftenly leads to generally speaking, most organizations or most orgs, really poor discovery. So really poor discovery, really really poor multi-threading, really poor um, executive engagement across the board.

So that's like a a big one for sure, just right there, right? Another really really common one, uh, which is it's hidden because most people don't realize it is how poor and how ineffective most frontline sales leaders are. And it's shocking, right? And I'm talking about like these are large organizations, there's multiple layers of leadership, right?

So it's not like the CEO's just managing a group of like 10 reps. This they have like, you know, multiple layers, there's, you know, you know, frontline leaders, directors, DP's, etc, right? And a lot of these frontline leaders, they're good people, okay? Some of them are maybe promoted from being a great rep into that role.

You know, maybe some are former sales leaders other places, but the common thing for most of them is when they step in that front frontline leadership role, whether it's their current company or somewhere else, most of them were never taught and trained how to be an effective sales leader. So most of them basically become basically a better version of what they're already good at. So if they're You're a great seller, go manage a team. That's it.

100%. So that is a hugely different skill. Huge gap. I'll give you a simple example.

We're working with an organization they do about 35 million bucks a year. They're based in California and they had wanted me to come train their sales organization. We did the same thing. I said, hold on, let me just let's do our diagnosis first.

Take a look at everything, right? Good people, good everything else, um, the biggest thing was their sales leaders are just not effective in the role. So literally we spent 90 days literally building out the playbook, training and developing their leaders, how to be highly like where the key priorities as a frontline sales leader. How do you hire, train, develop talent?

How do you run weekly meetings? How do you run weekly one-on-ones? How do you coach and develop? How do you do call reviews?

Like, things that essentially we for lack of better word we call it table stakes to be at least a basic leader, they weren't even doing, right? And they couldn't do do it well. So that's all we focused on, right? Faster 90 days, they went from like 70% to target to 100% to target.

We didn't we didn't train the sales team. We we didn't even touch their sales team. We just focused on on pure sales leadership. So a lot of times these gaps are they're they're a result of leaders solving the wrong problem.

They pick a symptom, they try to solve the symptom versus a core problem. Yeah. And that causes other issues down the road. 100%.

And I and I think this becomes a challenge even in our business, like when people come to us, they're like, same thing. We need more top of funnel. We like we need better close rates. And then you start digging in it's like, well, you actually don't even have a sales process that you're following and it's not really implemented in HubSpot and like when I pull the data, you told me your close rates were like, you said your velocity is like 90 days, but it looks like it's 35.

when you ask me to when you ask me to pull the data. Yeah. So I'm like, Adam, pull the data and let me know. But but that's the same thing, it's like Right.

okay, but the real problem 95% of the time isn't the real problem. That's the tricky said it's a symptom of the problem and it's like now we have to uncover what the real problem is. And one of our biggest problems that we've seen is like, yes, sales leadership is a potential problem, but even the sales team that you have may not be, you know, the sales team that you need. And then it's like, okay, now we may need to hire one or two.

And then it's like, okay, where's your job description? They're like, what job description? Or like, it's like two years old. And it's like, okay, where's your hiring scorecard?

And it's like, okay, I don't have that. Okay, where's your onboarding documentation? And then it's like this unraveling of. Onboarding?

What's onboarding? We we just hire them and go listen to some recorded calls. That's it. Yeah.

Marcus, when you look at revenue leakage, and I I agree with you with the audit and with the sales team, and certainly you don't need more top of funnel if you can't even close what you have. I actually think that's a huge takeaway for everyone listening because everyone, everyone we talk to right now is like, I need more top of funnel. If you can't close what you have, you you need to do a root cause analysis as to why that is. Like, is that ICP?

Is that because your reps like there is a reason. People are coming in the funnel. So it might not be top of funnel. But once they get in the funnel, what's a bigger culprit in your mind?

Is it that we're doing shitty discovery? Or is it doing that we're or that we're doing shitty demos that are just feature shows? Where do you think that disconnect really starts with the leakage? It's interesting, right?

So I would say 90% of the time, it's going to be discovery. Right? The discovery is just it's it's it's super ineffective, or they basically run a version of bant as a discovery, right? And that's like, I mean, I'm it's it's a wild thing.

I literally just listened to call like yesterday. I'm like, this is literally the first question is like, hey, so to solve this problem, like, what's your budget to solve this problem? And the But Marcus, do you do you have do you have authority to make a decision? I had someone away.

I'm like it's like five minutes in the conversation. I'm like, oh my God, like this is horrific, right? Yeah. So, um, that discovery is a big piece.

And what I think is also really interesting is there's often a confusion between discovery versus qualification. Tell me more. And there's a big shift right there. So, you know, for instance, bant, it's actually a pretty good from a qualification perspective.

But as a discovery, not good. Like if you just ask those bant questions, you're going to really piss off a lot of buyers, right? You know, and I think it's it's really really dangerous. Now, in some in some like, you know, like a med pick and medic you can you can kind of blend it, right?

If you do it right, if you do it like if you like if you actually understand what medic is, you know, it can it can be quite powerful if you if you do it right. But most time people treat it like a transactional thing. Like we have to make sure that Exactly. So, um, that discovery piece is one of the most important things.

That's actually why, you know, when you look at an organization even if you try to self diagnose, right? You look you get the data, right you look at all your data, try to look objectively. But then you should also take a look at like, hey, call recordings. Let me take a look at my rep's call recordings and see what are we seeing on the discovery calls, the demos.

You'll see common patterns, right? Things that may not show up necessarily in the CRM, in the that data, but it show up right inside there. And that can be very very telling. In fact, more telling sometimes and then what you actually see in the CRM.

Yeah, 100%. I I think that discovery is a process that needs to be done right. Discovery is not one phone call. Um, and what you just said, discovery is not qualification.

Right. Neither is bant, by the way. Bant is garbage. I will die on this hill.

I have this conversation with people on a daily basis. I think Dale, our last two clients use bant and I think it was the very first thing I said to them is, okay, first thing we're doing is getting rid of this. Um, because it doesn't work. So, all great call outs.

Let's let's go a little bit deeper into systems over heroics. So, you are huge into frameworks, right? Like frameworks are really important. Why is it that top performers typically convert, call it, two, three, if not, four X better?

And how do you properly use frameworks to replicate that across the team? Because I think frameworks are very different than scripts, and I think that's where I see a lot of people get screwed up. Yeah, so let's let's define some terms, right? Because I think a lot of times people define things incorrectly.

So, people say, Or maybe it's not incorrectly. Maybe it's just the way they define it and it's not right or wrong, but it's like we all need a common language. That's exactly right. Great point.

So this makes sure we have the same common language. Let's define together for those who are listening and watching, right. Don't don't correct the guest. Hey.

Hey, you know what? I like it. I'm game with it, right? So, a script will call is read this for verbatim if you say these exact things, you'll get an outcome.

Okay? A framework is a mental model for thinking. It helps you think through specific situations, you'll be a guide to follow along. So, for example, like a framework I teach is the powerful framework for discovery.

And that essentially means you want to uncover essentially eight core things in a in a discovery process. Sure. And it's not necessarily exactly in that order because I was going to say, does it have to be Marcus, how many reps do you have? Marcus, when do you hire them?

Marcus, what's the onboarding? Exactly, so that would not work, right? Because that's not how humans work. You can't converse that way.

But when I look at a framework, it's like an eight lane freeway. We're all head towards the same direction. Because we understand that where we're going, traffic though, who know who knows what's going to happen? There can be different cars, accidents and row, so you might speed up, slow down, change lanes.

In a framework is what allows you that flexibility to adjust based off the process. So when I go back into like say the discovery from powerful, you want to uncover P for pain, O opportunity costs, W wants and desires, E executive level influence, R resources, F fear of failure, U unequivocal trust, L little things. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean a reps going to go like, okay, P, O, W, that's not how it works. But they're going to adjust through the process and sometimes But how how do you tee that up so that they understand that?

Because most of the time, they do they they get this Google Doc and they say, oh, shit, I got to go through this in this exact order. You're you're exactly right. So the first step is you teach them the framework, right? So, I imagine it's kind of like, you know, if you're learning how to play piano, or guitar, or any sport to begin with.

You first learn the fundamentals. When you start to learn the fundamentals, once you start to master the fundamentals, it's far easier to adjust and adapt over time. So, when you look at say a sales process like a discovery, we know there's certain things that are almost always going to be the same, right? From how you start the call to be roughly the same for the most part, right?

You're going to have the center which has a lot of variaility, okay? And then you have the end where you're hopefully just setting next steps that are really clear. So you kind of know the front and the end are more controllable, everything in the middle, who knows? Right?

So if we can at least if we can teach a rep a framework, go, hey, here's a framework of how you run a sales call. Here's kind of how you start intro a call, you know, you set an up front agenda, what do you want on the call, right? And then here's kind of your leading question. So you can teach leading questions to start with, but then you teach other frameworks within it, so they can kind of go through.

So I I would teach say powerful, but then I'll teach him another sub framework called Rim. What's the relevance, what's the impact, what's the motive? So what happens when you need these different frameworks based off the response of somebody you can kind of jump around, right? But really, The problem the problem isn't the first answer.

Like you're going to get the first answer. The problem is like when you get the decision tree of like, shit, that wasn't what I was expecting to have happened. Correct. Right.

Where's the where's the string to pull? You mean they didn't give you they didn't give me the answer that I thought and I can't go down this because they didn't say yes, it's this problem. That's right. That's why it's it's always sad when you see something on like LinkedIn where they they map out the perfect Figma tree.

You're like, oh, if I run the exact process this way, they'll close it. Nah, not to the point where It's the ANA then workflow that has 500 steps that I built for you and I'm giving it away for free if you just comment workflow. Right. I mean, it's just that's perfect.

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So, what happens is you you teach these frameworks and you give them a guide, right? Now, here's the thing. When you teach a framework, I think the the the next big mistake a lot of leaders make is, okay, new hire, you just taught this framework. Let me go have you go practice on some prospects now.

What a horrible idea. Like, Right. The the practice should be literally with a leader who knows the framework and can be a tough prospect, right? They should actually be real plays, not role plays.

They should be tough challenging situations that are just like what they're going to count. In fact, probably harder. So when they're for a real prospect, it's a little bit easier, right? So you that's that goes into like the coaching teaching methodology, which is like you teach the framework and you teach them on how it's supposed to be done.

But then you actually need to go through it with them. So that they get that repetition built in multiple times and they can get more and more comfortable. That's the problem. Like you teach something, you teach something.

Like most training courses or yeah. people that train out there, like you train it and then you go away and then it's like it's never reinforced, it's put on the shelf. Like even us, we'll we'll do some training and then like we do a lot of spice. And then, um, we'll come back and we'll be like, okay, like what's the situation?

What's the pain? What's the impact? And it's like, nothing is done. It's like like they forget, they have amnesia, they don't know how to do it.

So, you're you're exactly right. Totally agree. They they usually forget, right? And that's where it's like, and depending on the tenure of the rep, you have to adjust how you coach and teach.

I think it's really really big. You know, you have someone who's far who has been trained in different mythology, who has a deeper understanding. They can pick up spice a little bit easier, right? You may not have to do much else like just kind of teach them and they can kind of run with it.

A new hire who's never thought about it before, it might be like, okay, here is the call prep sheet that literally has spice written down that you need to fill out. Like, this is your requirement, okay? Like, then you need to take it and you need to like put it inside your hub spot, you know, like we have fields that have a spice in there, so you need to fill out. Like this is your requirement, right?

So you have to kind of create some of these training habits, is not to be a stickler, but it's to help build a really good habit so they start thinking this way, and it becomes a habit versus like like this like one off thing. Yeah. So when you look at training programs, whether that be your training program, whether that be winning by design, no matter what it is. How do you differentiate a training program versus a true systematized sales engine?

Yeah, I think great question. So I think there's a couple things, right? So number one, I always think about like, how does the engagement even start? So a lot of times, and actually in fact, when I first like my experience for training companies was like, hey, we specialize in teaching XYZ thing.

You know, we'll come do a couple workshops for you, you'll be X amount. That's kind of their out of pocket, very scalable offer, right? That's your kind of your prototypical training program, okay? There's no context, there's no adjustment, there's nothing it's designed to help the organization.

But then I look at sales transformation programs. Things that actually truly transform an organization for long term, right? And when I look at it, those organizations run their business model differently. They actually run a far more like a big like, you know, a Bain's, McKinsey organization, right?

And what do those companies do? They always start off with a diagnostic or an audit first. Always. Why?

Because we learned we learned this one the hard way. Yeah. So you because then because then you know you're not getting something like you just not you're not getting a cookie cutter solve. You you're actually going to figure out, hey, what's the core problem.

And I find generally speaking, there's a lot of power in clarity because like I mentioned, most people solve the wrong problem, and they throw money at the wrong symptoms if you will, right? That's why you have to do the audit in the beginning, like, what you think's the problem is not really the problem. 100%. Like, I mean, this is even my own personal life.

This is we all have this issue, right? And I was talking to, you know, Adam before this, but like, you know, like, I was having like, you know, like, lower back pain and knee pain, you know, and and first I was like, it's probably because of like, I need to do more stretches. I do more stretching, foam rolling, I'm getting massages. Then then my buddy's like, oh, I think it's because you're you're flat foot.

So then I got, you know, better shoes and like, you know, cushion. I got better. And then I'm like, oh, you know what? It's actually a specialist like, hey, you actually, I have terrible mobility.

I sit too much. Oh. And now I've been doing more mobility work. What what was my pain go?

It's gone now, right? As a result, right? Because I'm solving the core root problem versus these symptoms, right? So we all kind of fall into it.

So going back to what I mentioned, like the first step is like, that organization will do a deep dive diagnostic first. That's really key. So they can really uncover what are the true root causes. And it's not about getting like a fancy 100-page report back.

Like, hey, like, just tell me like, what's the one pager? What's the two pager? What are the biggest problems right now? Like, what's the 20% that will drive the biggest impact, right?

Yep. And then the next phase of the engagement is design around solving that specific thing. Yep. That's really really key, right?

And then that phase could be, I mean, if it's going to be if it's me say for example, like maybe they there's no mythology in place, they need to be trained on mythology, right? That might be that might be what the next phase is, but it can't be like also like one or two workshops. It generally needs to be like a longer term engagement, so there's reinforcement and teaching. And then on top of that, there needs to be some level of train the trainer.

Because even that company, like for example, like, I'm not going to be that company forever, right? It's just their engagement. So we'll actually work directly with their sales leaders to make sure there's reinforcement sessions with them. So they have scorecards and tools and they know how to actually run one-on-ones and do the things that actually help them kind of reinforce these key themes that are being taught in the sessions or workshops to the reps as an over multiple multiple weeks as well, right?

And then on top of that, if it's the organization, then they're also building long-term assets as well. So sometimes it's it's maybe it's like maybe helping them rebuild out their HubSpot or their Salesforce, right? So things that align to what's being taught. Or it could be helping them build out playbooks as a part of it, right?

And then depending of course the engagement, right? And maybe it's that same engagement or the next one, what other core problems that have to get solved. So for example, for one one of our clients, you know, we started off the same thing, we do the audit first, then we focused on the first phase was training their sales leaders, right? And then the next phase now, because now the team is performing, is actually we actually helped them build out their performance manager process, right?

Because they didn't know how to affect they had it was kind of like fire at will if you will because they're at will, but there was no real process. So building out an SOP procedure for performance management across the board, the multiple steps to protect the organization from risk and situations to how the write-ups are actually going to look, to performance reviews and how that process should look as well. And then on top of that we rebuilt their whole hiring process, their job description, their hiring. Everything should align together across the board, right?

You know, and then of course also onboarding too. So what happens is if when you partner with an organization, not only are they diagnosing the core problems, they have solves that build long-term transformation and then not just bandage to do just to teach like, let me just teach him like challenger sell techniques for the for a couple weeks. It's solving core root problems that you can scale across the board beyond that partnership with that company. And you have to iterate too, right?

Imagine that it's not it's not treating the symptom, it's treating the root cause. That's right. Every single time. 100%.

100%. And and you have to iterate. Like when we tell customers, okay, you're not we're not going to get it right all the time either. Like, I in fact, probably, you know, 40, 25 to 40% of the time, we'll get it wrong because we don't know your business as well as you do.

We're we're guessing on some of the things. We're iterating through them. But that's why your engagement can't be a month or can't be a PowerPoint deck. Like you have to actually execute on the hypothesis, and then you need feedback from the company, you need feedback from the customers, you need feedback from the market.

You put all that stuff back into the engine, and you're like, okay, here's the next iteration. Like, we started at point of you know, version 0.9. Now we're at like 1.

5. And then like you can iterate on it. That's right. Because the business changes over time, right?

So I'll give you I'll give you another example, right? So we worked with an organization and they um, were really good at transactional sale. So like 5k, 10k deals, really good. Like, you know, overall as an org, they have a 25% close rate as an org.

pretty good overall. Um, we looked at the data, they really struggled with basically anything bigger than that, okay? Like, you know, like 20k just game over. I mean, basically, like feels like any mid-market deal, an enterprise deal, I mean, pretty much they were like closing maybe 5% at best, right?

So, we worked with them to build out and transform to that next level, right? And over the next over six months time, they went from that 5 to 10k average deal size to a quarter million dollars, okay? Wow. So, pretty drastic.

I mean, massive impact to the business overall, right? Um, and they're because they're selling to the mid-market space and they could have a you know, you know, do more organizations of that size, right? Now, here's a really interesting part. And this is the evolution is like, our engagement wraps up.

They're still like, they're still very happy clients. It's amazing, right? You know, I just was just talking to um, their their sales VP like actually a couple weeks ago. And here's the next issue they run into, right?

Because they haven't evolved from there, their whole process. The deals have gotten to be more complex. So now they're going after like half a million to a million dollar plus deals. And they're all like, like they can't run the same play anymore.

They're like, So like there's so much more complexity, right? So now we're looking to engage to basically help them evolve even more. They didn't want to do it on their own. But my point is, you don't have to work necessarily, you know, someone like me or you guys.

It's like, whenever you are brought a deliverable of something, right? It can't be static. It still requires maintenance and evolution over time. That that's just how it is.

You buy a brand new car, you don't just drive it around and just hope it takes care of itself. You still need to maintain it. You got to check the oil. If it's you know, if it's a while, if it's an electric car, you check in the tires.

You're making sure the the vehicle's going to be maintained and evolve over time because we are. Oh, you move cities? Hey, no problem. Is it ready for the city now, okay?

You have more miles on now? What do you need to do now to make sure you're constantly evolving in that process to make it better? Yeah, 100% and I I think the um, it it's so interesting what you were saying because motions are different and people just think, and it can be even the people. Like some people that sell transactional can't sell a mid-market, can't sell enterprise.

And not only the playbooks got to change, but the mentality. The there's like a lot of shifting. Hiring profile, everything. Yeah.

Everything, like we we we talk a lot like I I've done SMB mid-market and what I'll call like mid-enterprise. I am not the guy to go to go have the 24-month sales cycle selling a $250 million deal. It's not my skill set. Could I learn it?

Probably. But like are you going to pop me in to do that? No. Conversely, like the guy who sells the 24-month $250 million deal would blow his brains out if he had to go sell mid-market or SMB.

They're wildly different profiles. What the hell is that? It sounds like a disease. It's a real thing.

Look it up. Um, but like I'm not the guy to go sell to go have to sell the SMB. They're wildly different profiles. Yep.

It's right. 100%. 100%. Cool.

So, you went from like a $195 million org just like this small little org to like launching your own business. Thank you for reminding uh Dale, appreciate that. I bet you're a lot happier now. Um, but what lessons did you learn in that organization going into like launching your own thing?

You know, it's interesting, right? Um, it was it was it was a big shift because I think I never want to start my own business, right? So, um, Really. Yeah, I I never I because my parents were actually entrepreneurs and they had a restaurant and I grew up working in a restaurant like this is super hard to make money.

Like I don't want to do that. I mean, especially in a restaurant. Yeah, I'm like this is awful. This is this is what entrepreneurship is.

It's terrible, right? With the margins are like 3%, right? So it's like It's horrible, horrible. Yeah.

So, like for me, I was like, oh man, I never wanted to just do that, right? So, you know, it was interesting because I would say, learning how to like run large organizations over time taught me so much. Like it helped me so much not just for my own business, but also for like my clients as well. And the thing that I did not even realize, you know, things like because I ran into problems over time, I make shifts, right?

Now, I have to put a little asterisk here because I would say, as an employee, I always acted like an intrapreneur. Meaning, I acted like I was an entrepreneur running my own business in any role that I was in. So if I was a rep, I literally acted like a CEO of my own territory. So I would do my own I mean, if I didn't have marketing, I would build my own marketing pieces.

Like I would do whatever it took to make. Marketing marketing loves that at a big company when you just build your own marketing team. Yeah, they absolutely they absolutely love it, right? So they absolutely love it, right?

So like I'll do all these things. Yeah. Gotta get the deal closed, man. Yeah, 100%.

But I'll say the biggest lessons I took that really helped me dramatically, um, was actually a lot of leadership lessons. Um, like scaling and running organizations. Because like the selling thing it really doesn't change that much if you were selling for yourself or you were selling for a company, you're still selling a sales process. Um, but when I start to ascend through and I started run these problems over time, right?

So for instance, like I think I think about the first jump which is you go from selling to maybe managing a sales team. That was like hard and a big realization that like, oh man, like I'm not good at hiring, training, onboarding, all those things. So, what I have to do? Okay, I have to learn how to do those things, okay?

That obviously helped me with my clients now and also, you know, for my own business as well. But then when I went to the next level, where now I'm managing managers and each of them have reps. So I go from having 20 direct reps reporting into me to now I have an org of 85 reps, I have 10 sales leaders, right? It's a big jump.

And I'm like, oh man, like and I started to realize like for the first piece was time horizon. So like, time horizon wise, you know, I'd always think in about, I mean, I kind of as a rep, you I always think like almost like week to week, month to month, okay? Um, you know, maybe quarter to quarter if I was lucky. Uh as a manager, I still think more like quarter to quarter, maybe like, you know, year to year.

If you will, I'll see a little further in advance. But once I stepped into like managing like managing uh like leaders, and I started to I started to see like, um, other data points. I I'll give you basically punched in the face with different things. So for instance, like I I realized it would take me, um, when I hired someone, it would take about 157 days for them to produce their first deal.

And I'm like, huh, that's not good, especially when I have 10 teams. And then if you take a step back, not only that, let's let's for simple counts like 100 reps. If 100 reps, if I know the market that I took over has 40% turnover, I need to hire 40 new reps that year. Yep.

Huh. And I can't wait till the end of the year to do it. Plus you add 157 day, you know, ramp time and you add in like, you know, about, you know, like the, you know, if there's leadership turnover and all that stuff, this becomes a situation where I'm just not going to hit my number. And you can't start you can't be thinking in months or years at a point.

You actually need to be thinking like three to five years in advance. Right. Because I start to realize, this is this is a lot. So, literally, I'd have to start hiring yesterday for like a problem I'm going to deal with in like 12 to 24 months time.

Yeah. So the time horizon had to start to go way way bigger. And you add in your sales cycle, etcetera, right? Now on and of course increased codes every year.

Now, when you start thinking this way, you're like, okay, that's really interesting. So what are my core root issues then? And you your core root issues actually change drastically when you look at a longer time horizon. Because now it wasn't just hitting your number.

It was like, how can I hit, you know, like my 2026 number, my 2028 number, my 2030 number? Because you had to look so far in advance, right? So I had to start solving different problems. And because when you when you have that larger scope of time, you're like, okay, like, all right, like here's a core root issue, like, number one, I knew we had a hiring like when I took over that org, I'm like, we have a hiring profile issue.

We're kind of hiring anybody with a pulse, almost it seems like, and that's why there's such high turnover. That was a big core issue, right? So how can we get that 100% aligned and fixed? The second thing was like, I'm like, onboarding.

Like, onboarding was not like there was kind of corporate structure, but it was not great. Redesign the onboarding, so people were closing their first deal in four weeks versus six months. So redesigning that completely, right? And then on top of that, like the other thing I didn't realize later was like leadership development.

I knew if I had 10 sales leaders, I had 20% at least 20% turnover about that time, I'll have to hire two new sales leaders. Every year. So ideally I pulled them from the reps. Yeah.

So that meant I needed to have the better system in place to develop them to be ready because their ramp time was too long as well. Too many people don't look at the lead time to hire, forget the ramp time, the lead time to hire, like, I mean, say a platform out there that I will not name, um, but this is the only thing they did good. Like there's a lot of things they claim to do, but like, it literally would look at your how long it takes you to hire specific roles, the impact it would take on not just how long to hire, to source, to interview, and to ramp. And to tell you if you need a million dollars this year, forget the fact that okay, a rep has a three-month ramp and it takes that long.

But like, it's going to take you six months to hire. MF, you need to post that role three months ago. Um, otherwise you have zero chance of hitting this number. You're exactly right.

That's where I got 157 days. That's exactly how it was. Because we like I worked HR, I I sourced the data. I'm like, oh my gosh, like that means like, I opened the wreck right now.

No one's going to apply yet. And I'm already seven months behind, is that what you're telling me? You're already behind. So like, and I knew that already.

So I'm like, okay, so we need to be thinking so much further in advance. So I'll have to look at the year trend plus I'll expect my head count to jump into plus both in turnover. So I knew if I can solve some of these core root issues of improving hiring, onboarding, training, developing my leaders, having a development program for the reps, I can reduce the turnover down. So that's actually why in year one, we went from like 40% to 17% turnover as an org, right?

Wow. So that was that was massive because like that helped me that that gave me room to breathe. Right? And then we kind of tapered about 20%, right?

I'll say I'll say 17% is actually a little low because, you know, you that means you're also not coaching out people that probably need to be coached out as well, right? So there's there's a little bit of side effects. So you have to have some turnover. I truly believe that.

But you have to be thinking now in like years in advance to do that. Which means that means you have to do the hard things today that you don't see any benefit from. Like that's like it's like that's unsexy but like, let me just sit down and basically redraw like, you know, like how we hire people, the profile and the process to do that. Let me relook at the onboarding process.

Let me relook at how we develop reps. That's boring. But but the most unsexy things nine times out of 10 are what's going to move the business forward. Listen, I love being on sales calls with reps.

I love closing deals. I love writing big comp checks. But if you don't do the unsexy things, you're not going to get to do any of that because you're not going to have a team to make sales calls with. 100%.

100%. You know and that's where it's like, you have to start to and you can't solve all of them at once. You pick like the biggest the biggest burning fires and you start solving them, but you're looking that far in advance. And so when I made that jump over, that helped me love my business.

Like so literally no joke like, you know, September 19, 2019 was the day I started my business, so 9/19/19 and I literally white bordered a five years, with my five year like plan. My offers, my structure, I built it all out. Right? Now, it doesn't mean it's going to be perfect, but I identify what are my core constraints?

And let me tackle those constraints. And that's what I start to work to solve those constraints. Now, again, they're hypotheses at the time, right? And sometimes they were right, sometimes they were wrong, but I put that in place.

But then on top of that, you know, what I really learned as well was like especially in corporate, like you have a plan for the year and all these things, you know, territorial plan, capacity models, all that jazz. But like, everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face. I think that's what Mike Tyson said, right? So, I did all those things.

You you you you look far ahead, you build all these things out, but then I I also inserted reflection points. So this allowed me to reflect in consistent times throughout the year to make pivots, right? So for instance, I actually had like a weekly injection my calendar called the executive review. I'd review certain things in K P I S and things and see are we trending towards the right things on a monthly basis?

We mean every segment quarterly as well. And then we'd re-pivot the plan if we need to for the upcoming time frames as well. So that was really critical because sometimes we put together a plan, and we run so hard and we try to execute that plan. We don't realize the goal post has moved, or something has shifted in the market.

You actually need to pivot because now there's a bigger fire to put out. Well. I love that. That's a lot of learning.

That's a lot Well said. That is a lot of learning. We uh we are at the time that we need to move more towards rapid fire. I feel like this should be a 60-minute episode because that was a lot of learning and we could drill super deep.

Um but we're going we're going to go a little a little faster, um with some of the questions here. What kind of sales org wins in the next three to five years? The one that can adapt the fastest. I mean, I think it's that simple, right?

I love it. Love it. What's one KPI sales leaders obsess over that doesn't uh matter as much as they think? Oh, pipeline coverage.

Yep. Yeah. What's uh what's one sales myth that you just wish would fucking die? One sales myth because there's many.

Um. Let me think. Man, because there's there's a lot of ones that I I absolutely hate. I I'll pick the one I I see the most common which is sales is the numbers game.

And to be very specific, they mean numbers by driving more activity. Yep. Yeah. Make more calls, you'll close more deals.

That's right. No. False. Biggest biggest misconception about top performers.

Hmm, good one. They're hard to replicate. Ooh. Yeah.

I like that one. If you had a framework, you could replicate them. I'm just saying, if you start and the my core common patterns and belief systems and then you start building your hiring process around that, it starts to change how you actually build your org. Yeah.

Marcus, you're you're you can't be in sales. You can't be in consulting. But you still have to work. What are you going to go do tomorrow?

Restaurant. Do I need money? Oh, don't I need money? Is that matter?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you you you you you need you need money. You you You can't be an entrepreneur, right? It can't be an entrepreneur. No.

Oh, okay. All right. Uh, as strange as that might sound, I'd probably become like either a life coach or a fitness coach. Okay.

Yeah. I still love coaching my I at the end of the day and uh Yeah. You you impacting people just a different way. 100%.

Last one. Dream vacation destination. Destination. Dream vacation destination.

Oh, you know what it it is actually a good question because we haven't been out for for a long time. Um, because my kids got a bunch of allergies, there's a whole thing to travel. But, um, I would say uh, I would say it's probably I I'm just dream destination by itself. But I want to visit like every country in Europe.

Like I've only been to Italy. I love that. Right? I've been a bunch of places in Asia which has been amazing.

But I really have not been over in Europe that much outside of Italy. And I think there's a lot of obviously amazing culture and history there. Yeah. And uh, of course great food too.

So, I'd love to do that. I love that. Awesome. I love it.

Marcus Chan, thank you so much for joining the show. Thank you for the learning lessons. I highly recommend everyone not just listen to this once, and this is not a shameless plug, download it, I don't care about the stats. Go back and listen to it again because there was so much knowledge on how to effectively build and transform your sales team and revenue engine in this episode, you're not going to do it justice if you just listen through it one more one time.

Marcus, thanks for joining, man. Thank you, man. Dope.