The Best Way to Sell Without Sounding Like a Pushy Rep
In this episode, Ashley Back Kwire challenges the outdated, high-velocity 'spray and pray' sales tactics that dominate modern tech sales. She argues that the era of pushing reps to make 150 dials a day is not only ineffective but deeply damaging to both the rep's mindset and the buyer's trust. Instead, she advocates for a radically human-first approach where deep research, a dialed-in ideal customer profile (ICP), and authentic interactions replace aggressive used-car-sales techniques. Central to her philosophy is the concept of radical honesty in outreach. Ashley explains how explicitly telling prospects 'this is a sales call' in the first few seconds diffuses pressure, builds immediate trust, and drastically increases the likelihood of a meaningful conversation. By adopting a mindset built on abundance, detachment, and high intention, sales professionals can completely remove the desperation from their pitch, making the process more enjoyable and ultimately more successful. Beyond individual tactics, Ashley dives into building high-trust, self-led sales cultures. She emphasizes that scaling a revenue team shouldn't mean micromanaging activity metrics or sacrificing team cohesion. By hiring for positivity, integrity, and passion, and treating employees as adults who own their outcomes, leaders can cultivate environments where top performers naturally thrive without the constant pressure of arbitrary daily targets.
Discussed in this episode
- Shifting away from the high-volume 150-calls-a-day metric to making 10 highly researched, targeted dials.
- Using a tightly defined ICP and buyer persona to ensure outbound relevance and reduce the feeling of 'icky' selling.
- Opening cold calls with radical honesty by clearly stating it's a sales call to lower defensive barriers.
- Eliminating the long-winded pitch in first-touch cold emails and explicitly not asking for 15 minutes of time.
- Embracing the 'woo-woo' aspects of sales mindset by anchoring on abundance, detachment, and intention.
- Accepting that 'no' is an okay outcome and the second best answer you can get in a sales conversation.
- Creating self-led, high-trust sales teams that manage their own schedules without needing micromanagement.
- Hiring for non-negotiable core traits like positivity, deep integrity, and genuine passion.
Episode highlights
- — Introduction to human-first B2B sales
- — Why high-velocity tech sales is broken
- — Doing targeted research over spray-and-pray
- — Dropping the used-car-salesman tactics
- — Radical honesty in cold calling openers
- — How personal mindset impacts outbound performance
- — The three pillars: abundance, detachment, intention
- — Building a self-led, high-trust team culture
- — Aligning culture to avoid dilution during growth
- — Core hiring attributes for modern sales reps
Key takeaways
- Quality account research beats high-volume spray-and-pray.
- Radical honesty diffuses pressure in cold outreach.
- A clear 'no' is the second best answer.
- Anchor your mindset in abundance, detachment, and intention.
- Hire for positivity, integrity, and genuine passion.
Transcript
The outbound feels better, feels less icky when you know who you're talking to and that you can actually genuinely help them because you've dialed in your ICP so well. Every training I've ever been in is like, you got to sell hard, and you got to go for the close, and you got to do this, and you got to do that. I don't believe in hard selling. I've been in sales for 25 years.
I still know how to cold call, but the easiest way to do it is to tell them from the get-go that it's a sales call. And say, this is a sales call. Welcome back to another episode of The Bridge the Gap podcast, powered by Revenue Reimagined, and a little bit of Dunkin Donuts, and a little Starbucks this morning. If either of you would like to sponsor the show, please feel free to reach out.
Today's guest is Ashley Back Kwire, who is the head of expansion at Seamless Roofing and founder of Sales Spark. She's built and coached teams in both the tech and construction sectors, blending mindfulness with performance to build high trust, high output sales teams. She's passionate about authentic, human first sales practices that prioritize relationships over transactions. We're going to talk about leading with care, how to build teams that genuinely care about their customers, not the way Dale pretends to care about me, and why a shift from hard sell tactics to authentic sales works better long-term.
Ashley and your Starbucks, welcome to the show. Thank you, my Starbucks and I are glad to be here. Cheers. And Adam cannot stand hot coffee.
That's what we learned today, so. I don't, I don't, I just don't like it. I've tried. And It's okay.
My best friend only drinks cold coffee also. So I used to work for a Boston company and they would make fun of me. I'd be up there in the dead of winter and I'd be the only person who would walk into Starbucks and order an ice coffee. And they're like, it's negative three out.
I'm like, great, I'll walk out holding my ice coffee. Please and thank you. I have mittens, so don't worry. Yeah, I know none of that either, but like I just, I don't know.
Hot liquid doesn't work for me. Welcome to the Coffee Show, powered by Revenue Reimagined. My friend Adam Coffee talk. We are thinking of some rebranding.
We could rename the show Coffee Talk. I'm I'm down. Bring a female co-host in, we'll have a little bit of fun. There you go.
I love it. Awesome. Well, let's let's jump into some some sales and and CS and some fun stuff about human uh human-led sales first. So you talk a lot about human-led, you know, human-first sales.
Um what does that actually look like day-to-day for like a BDR team for example or even a CS team? I think CS is easier, but BDRs are like, go make cold calls, go do all this stuff. Like, how does human-first uh in that space work? Well, so, I'm going to say a thing right from the jump that's just going to make everybody's blood boil, but I think that tech like kind of broke the mold a little bit, they broke the model and like super high velocity, high volume is kind of just not going to work the same anymore.
It just go. Um, there was this moment in time where it was the thing, um, but that's slowed down a little bit and I preach the days of 150 calls, 100 calls a day. That that stuff is that is over and that is also a waste of time. Um, I spend my days planning the research to make the right 10 phone calls instead of burning through 100 phone calls and hoping I hit somebody that picks up because that then maybe it's the wrong person that picks up.
You know, I mean, you just never know what you're going to get. That that's hard though, right? Like when you look at what B2B tech has done, and I do think they have butchered sales. Um, we for the past several years have gone on this volume mind mindset and listen, I'll say it right now.
I blame the out reaches in the sales loss of the world who said, listen, go find everyone that and they use the term ICP much looser than I can, but go find everyone who might possibly, somehow, some way perhaps be able to buy your product. Put them in a sequence that has no personal relevance that basically says, hi Dale, because you do this at Revenue Reimagined, I could solve your problem. And hope for that sub-1% response rate. Yeah.
And listen, in the growth at all costs era, people would hire hundreds of dozens to hundreds of BDRs. Um, to go execute on this, which is a whole separate conversation. Um, and now we're coming back and we're telling people, wait a minute, this is wrong. And with the advent of AI, you could actually do it the right way and get a lot of really good information really easily, to to your point, reach out to those 10 really relevant people who could really benefit from your solution by focusing on their pain.
Yep. But what what do you say to the sales leaders that are like, my people don't have time to do like, this this is a numbers game, right? Sales is a numbers game. But it but what if you're looking at the right numbers instead of looking at the hundred like the the the yellow book list.
I mean, when I my uh my my previous life was in automotive marketing and when I started, day one, they had just purchased a sales force license for everybody and basically uploaded the yellow pages of car dealerships in the entire United States. Well, I'm calling Bob who is listed as Bob's Cars LLC, but really just has three cars in his driveway and I'm also calling Pensky Ford that has 500 cars on the lot. And that is not the same conversation. You know, I mean a BDR should not be having the same conversation with Bob as they are with Jeff, the GM at Pensky Ford.
And so if the people are equipped with who they are calling, then their messaging lands better and they every the numbers all look better because the closing ratio and and becomes much better when you actually are providing the right message to the right people, right? I mean, and and and to the to the CS part of it, Dale, I think that client success is massive. And it is something that gets so overlooked and where do you like you mind revenue from the people who are already paying you? And so those people are incredibly important to keep your people happy, keep that trust there.
I I just had a conversation yesterday with 15 people in a room and the conversation basically boiled down to my best client was based on trust. They trusted me to make a decision. I trusted them to make the to to trust me to make the right decisions and to give me the right information and the right feedback. And so it's that trust level in the CS is what does that, that's what keeps the clients and the cows around, you know.
So, and and so, but on the CS side of the world, it seems a little bit easier because you always had you already had that relationship a little bit. Now, your product or service has to deliver exactly what you wanted to deliver on. Do you know what I mean? Like you can't just uh, it can't just be all human, human first, like, your product or service has to deliver and I think in the growth at all costs mindset, there was a world where that was not happening either.
That's why like a lot of products fail or services fail, just because you're not delivering on what you're saying you're delivering in the sales process. But I think on the front end of this, um, what we have seen work is more human first, understanding your buyer. That's why a lot of times when we're talking about it, we talk about like, building a stable foundation of like your what we call go-to-market foundation. Value proposition, ideal customer profile, buying persona, competitive analysis.
If you know that basic piece, then you're going to be much more uh effective and efficient at who you're reaching out to. So I'd rather you have a meeting set after 10 versus one meeting set after 100. Like it just doesn't make sense. Like the numbers are much better.
Yeah. And and I think that the the message the outbound feels better, feels less icky, when you know who you're talking to and that you can actually genuinely help them because you've dialed in your ICP so well. 100%. And I and and to speak for the fact that I'm, you know, like attempting to build a new vertical over here in my own little world, um, I learn every day, you know, I learn every time I do, I learn every day that I sit down and do outbound, that maybe I'm refining something a little bit more.
Maybe you know, I I get I get big eyes and I'm like, oh, I want that Fortune 500 company, I'm going to go after that. Look at how many facilities they have. Oh my God. Um, and then I'm like, but wait, if I really look at it, it's those owner-operated, who's got the checkbook in his hand.
He can write the check and pay. It's those that are really where our sweet spot is. And so you just learn. You know, you you go about it and you learn.
Um, and you learn. It doesn't mean you can't go after the big guys. It just means like your majority of the outbound or whatever you're going from a sales perspective is in your ICP, and you go for a couple home runs on some wild, but like do you want to spend four months trying to close something or do you want to spend four days? And it's like if I can spend four days, then I can I can go through more and provide more value to more people.
Like at the end of the day, if you are in a company that you believe you can provide value to more people in a faster way, like that should be our mindset, not like I want the big commission check. Well, and especially as you're building, right? As you're as you're building, it's like get some of that low-hanging fruit so that you show value and you provide value and then people know your name a little bit more and then you can start to, you know, have have more case studies, have more examples, have more to show for what you've done. Um, and then that helps you get to the bigger ones too.
So, But it's it's a fundamental shift, right? Like the other fundamental shift that I think we're seeing and where people are struggling is this kind of what I'll call soft sell versus hard sell, right? And historically, you know, as every training I've ever been in is like, you got to sell hard, and you got to go for the close, and you got to do this, and you got to do that. And like, whether I was working full-time for a company or even in our business, you know, I don't believe in hard selling.
Like listen, I'd love to partner with you. I think we have an immense amount of value. I I think this could be a really symbiotic relationship. Um, but I'm not going to push you.
Like if I haven't shown you the value, me me being pushy isn't going to do oh, we only have one spot or you know, the the price expires tomorrow. Um, you know, all all of that bullshit that is what I call used car sales. Yes, which is the soft sell, right? But people people are afraid to soften it up and just be human, right?
Like I often will start sales conversations with listen like, we're gonna have a chat and if it makes sense to continue the conversation, fantastic. Um, and maybe we could work together and if not, hey, it's a great networking opportunity and we can find a way to help each other out in some other ways. Like, no problem. Um, I think that and I go ahead.
I was say I think that that takes the pressure it takes the dig, but honesty takes the pressure off, um, and even in cold calling situations, right? Like I'm doing cold outbound like and you know, I mean I've been doing I've been in sales for 25 years. I still know how to cold call, but the easiest way to do it is to tell them from the get-go that it's a sales call. And say, this is a sales call.
My name's Ashley. Do you have time for this right now or do you want to hang up on me? You know, I mean I make it a joke. And every every single time.
I have yet to have somebody not say, go ahead, let's talk about what you called for. You know, I mean, it just that's the way it is when you're when you push that honesty and not like you said, Adam, not the like hard sell, like I have to sell three more today at $500 off or $500 off. Yeah. You know, I mean that type of thing is not because I it makes people, it gets people the icks, you know, it makes people feel like you're being pushy and they don't want that.
Um, and I I I think that there's also this big because especially because of AI, there's a lot of like we can do personalize that scale. And I'm like, okay, but if you actually personalize Can you do personalize at scale? Oh, you can't. Not really.
You kind of can, um, to some extent. So, one of the things that I do and that's part of my process is once I decided that a person inside the building is the contact that I'm going to try to reach and I have an email address for them. I you know, like switch a little button in my CRM and automated email goes to them that just says, hey, I'm Ashley. I love huge metal rooftops.
I don't love cold emails, but I wanted to introduce Seamless so you've heard the name, nothing else to do here. Um, great day. So, but that that is what works. And and even any type of cold email, like nothing drives me crazy more than this first email that is this more crazy, crazy more.
Fuck off. This long, this detailed, this is why the show's rated explicit. This dissertation of everything Is to D&D's coffee. Mute Dale.
This dissertation of everything that we can do, can possibly do, how we could possibly help you and then is it worth a 15-minute chat to learn more? You haven't earned the damn right to ask for 15 minutes of my time. Right. All we want to do is make an introduction and get any type of response.
Even if that response is go piss off. Um, some type of response, but I love how low-pressure you're making it. I want to pivot that real quick into coaching reps to build trust, right? Because it is low-pressure and you've built training programs for sales teams.
How do you make sure that your coaching process mimics what you're saying, right? That empowers the reps instead of teaching them to drive the pressure, which in turn, in my opinion, makes them feel the pressure. Correct. Yep.
So, a lot of what my coaching revolves around is woo-woo shit that everybody doesn't like. And to me, Did you say woo-woo shit? I did. I like it.
I'm here for it. Um, I actually really believe that mindset is a big deal. Like it is really important. Here's something I keep seeing with sales teams I work with.
Generic sequences don't work anymore. We've all gotten so good at turning out the noise that even your own buyers are ignoring you. The problem isn't your reps. It's that your sequences are static and your signals are somewhere else entirely.
That's why our clients use Nooks. And the thing that's stuck with me is that their sequences actually stay fresh because the signals update them automatically. Right buyer, right moment, with no manual babysitting. If your outbound feels like it's shouting into a void, go check them out at nooks.
ai/bridge the gap. To go into any kind of phone call, whether you're cold calling somebody you don't know or having a discovery call with a CEO. It doesn't matter. Your mindset is incredibly important when you go into that call.
Yeah. And one of the things that I teach everyone is the person sitting across from you or on the other end of that phone is a human being. They are a human being. They fed their dog this morning.
They spilled it all over themselves when they were taking their kid to school, like, they just got to their desk and sat down and they got sweat, don't be dumb and they're like, you know what, I'm ready for it. So, we're all the we're nobody's cooler than anybody else. Just so don't stand, girl, don't freak out. Just be there, be in the moment, be present.
And I think that that changes people's I also tell them that no is an okay answer and probably the second best answer that anyone Second best answer. wanted to hear. And so, go for that if that's what you're going for. Um, and then that kind of like lowers the pressure for the outcome, right?
So completely detach from the outcome and So, abundance, detachment and intention are my three like pillars that I stand by, right? So, have an abundant mindset, know that there's enough for everybody to go around. If that guy says no, hang up, call the next one. Totally fine.
Not a big deal. Um, have high intention. Love that. Right?
I mean, it's it's the easiest way to take a no and just be like, okay, cool. I also always say, I know is not a no forever. Never is a no, a no forever. I can put you And you're closer to the next yes.
So Exactly. Right. The the goal of the no is to figure out why. Um, why is it a no?
And maybe they're not a right fit now. To your point, maybe they're not a right fit ever. But you find out that answer and and you move on. Absolutely.
It's just being able to move the needle a little bit to the next go to the next one, make make move that one along. I mean, I told Dale no probably 10 times before I agreed to work with him, so. He ran as fast as he could because he didn't know what the hell he was doing. Don't let him kid you.
Well, I mean, I mean, truly though, no is it's one of the things that lady sales reps don't want to hear ever. But it is so good to hear once you learn that it's the thing that it's you that keeps the motion. Keeps things moving. So, And Ashley, do you think that like comes from just experience?
Like have you always been like that or is that like something you've learned over time? Because I think the older Adam gets, he's starting to understand it, but earlier in his career, he just did not get it. So, I'm curious whether this is like something you've learned over time. I I I failed you all.
I think it's something that is there's some of it that was already there. Like I I I came into my sales career with a lot of confidence in myself already. Um, but not confidence in sales or the sales process necessarily or what it felt like when somebody was maybe going to say yes and I should keep them around a little bit longer. That type of thing.
That stuff I got more confident in as I went. Um, but I definitely walked into the room for the first time saying, I'm going to sit across from this man who's interviewing me and I know that he likes to watch football on Sundays too. And so that's fine. That type of thing.
Um, and I think that that's important and reps. I also think that it's important to want to win for yourself, right? We talk about like super high achievers, we want to win. But it's also super important to want to win for your team.
Like I'm a big believer in team values and team players and and, you know, people that are on a team together playing with each other instead of against each other. Um, and I think sometimes in sales that's hard to find. You know, you find these people that are like, I'm going out for the kill for myself. That's all there is to it and they're, you know, there can be a lot of fighting in territories and like Rep Land and things like that.
But if we all are just in it together, then there would be so much more for everybody to go around. The abundance just continues to grow if everybody helps each other out instead of fighting against it. I love that. Yeah.
It's it's a huge, it's huge. In fact, I always tell Adam, everything he puts in has to be a positive, not a negative. But he has his different mindset, but we'll get there. It's a hard nut to crack.
It's a hard nut to crack. Oh, boy. And it's interesting because also sales reps are typically very high-adjustment people. Like, Yeah.
Yeah. you know, say no, move along. Say no, move along. But some of the best sales reps that I've ever met are not actually that high-adjustment.
They really do give a shit. Like they really care. And they really do want that deal to move because they believe, they genuinely believe they can help that person. And so, letting some of those attachment level can can definitely be higher.
So, this leads into like the next really uh interesting part of what I'd like to talk about, which is the mindful sales leader. So, the non-Dale sales leader. He he's just jealous. He's jealous that I can find my zen very quickly.
But, I mean, that that is very true. Um, so, how do you set that tone for the sales team to cultivate both performance and well-being? Like, is there something that you guys do as a team? Is there something you recommend individually?
Like, what are the things to kind of balance that? Especially, like either at the end of a quarter or the end of the year, like where that real pressure like turns the dial? Um, so, Well, it's a different So, where I am now is much different ecosystem than where I was in automotive advertising or in tech. You know, like one big roofing job can make your year, you know, in in like large commercial roofing situations like this sometimes.
Um, but one that's a heroic sales. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, and and they the culture is so self-led here and so team-oriented that you can't help but know that you're carrying the weight of the team. You know, like How how how did how did that happen though? Like how did you get such a self-led culture? Because that is one of the hardest, if not the hardest things to do without people needing to be told what to do every minute of every day.
It's true. I mean, we're it's still a small team, so that's part of it, right? So, it's still a small team. But, um, from the small team, we have business development, we have operations people and we even have our service, like our service trucks that are on the road.
Those guys make their own schedule. They know what's in the in the CRM, they know what needs to be taken care of and what the priorities are and we don't tell them, go here, go here, go here, go here. We let them look at the calendar and decide what it makes sense and work as a team to decide where to go. Um, and also, because we do that, they are more motivated to continue to increase that service business and help the company make more revenue.
So when I come in and I'm like, hey, have we been communicating with our service customers post service at all? No. Cool. If I started doing that, would you guys enjoy that and would that help increase revenue and help increase touch points with our customers?
They're like, yeah, that would be great. You know, Yes, please. Yeah, and they're into that. And so that team mentality and like we're all growing this together has been what has and and and I know that that can be kind of contrived.
And so that whole like, we're all a big team. We're all a big happy family. As long as we don't as long as we don't use the word family. I I I don't think the word family has a place in in corporate, but Correct.
Correct. And we don't either. And but a team is important to us. Like we are 100%.
cultivating an office space and an office environment. We have um mandatory fun once a quarter where it's during a work day and we all get together and So I'm the only woman that works here. I like that. I like that though.
Mandatory Fun, Dale, stop working me so damn hard. It's your own fault, you can handle it, I promise. And there's usually working that still happens. I mean, it's like play 18 holes of golf together.
Uh, I would love to see Adam out in the golf course. What does that mean? Tell me what that means, Dale. You don't think I can play?
No. No. I don't think you can handle I don't think you can handle the heat. Interesting.
Interesting. I got pulled into golf because all of these guys golf and I mandatory fun was golf and I was like, well, I'll be damned if I'm going to miss out on mandatory fun. Yeah. So I'm going.
I love that. Listen, I I don't love golf. I can golf. The reason I don't love golf is there are not many people, Dale included, um, that I want to spend four hours with in the hot sun on a golf course where I have to drink to get through the day.
Fair. Um, but uh, You don't have to drink to get through the day. That's a different problem. With you?
Um, I I take I take my kid to Topgolf all the time actually. So. Well, my my daughter appreciates it because my daughter and my husband golf and so then when I started here and the guys got me to golf and I went and golfed with my husband and my daughter, my daughter was like, Mom's come and golfing? This is awesome.
I love it. I love it. Yeah, so I mean we do stuff like that and everybody's invited to, you know, drink what's in the refrigerator, you know, eat whatever is on the shelves and we stock things from. You know, just a it's a small Love that.
small group, but it's also everything's for everybody. We all share. Yeah. Yeah.
That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. So you're you're scaling and you're growing, you're you're building this company. Um, the goal and I love the everyone sharing, but the goal is to, you know, I'd imagine, get bigger and better and continue to grow.
As you do that, oftentimes culture dissipates, right? Like I saw this happen, um, a lot at Toast. Like we had this phenomenal culture that everyone wanted to work here. And the bigger we got, um, the more we lost ourselves.
How do you make sure that that human first consultative approach, we're all in it together, mandatory fun, like how do you make sure that doesn't get diluted as you grow? You completely self-fund your business for the rest of forever and don't ever have to worry about anything. That would be the only. Shout out to all our VC and PE friends here on The Bridge the Gap podcast.
No, I mean, it is absolute absolutely comes down to making sure and I hate the word I I both of these words I do not enjoy, but synergy and alignment are incredibly important when it comes to the human beings that you are doing business with. And so, if you do not feel like you your values and what you want to do day-to-day aligns with all the other people that you are with day-to-day, then it's not going to work. I I think I I just want to interrupt for one second because I don't think it's just investment. I think investment creates a undue pressure of like and expectations, but everything is an expectation thing.
The reason why PC, BC and PE firms do not work because the expectations aren't aligned with what you're you're trying to accomplish. And the same thing if you're not if you're family-owned or, you know, single-person owned, you can only hire so many A players. And if you have all A personalities on the team and all of a sudden you're growing from 10 million to 40 million, that growth trajectory, you're going to end up with C and B players. That's just like what's going to happen.
So, you have to like almost reset your expectations as you're growing to figure out how that's going to work. Like today it works very well and you can build that culture from a foundational perspective to make sure when you hire, which was a question I was going to have for you like if you had to restart the hiring process today, what are the three values or the three things that you would look for in your hires? Like what would that be? Oh, good question.
Very interesting question. Dale, it's a great question. Um, well, I want to so one of the things this kind of goes back to the question that you asked prior and I just wanted to like kind of re-answer it because it it does the the when you're the coaching part and like keeping culture, part of that is about not having a team of 20 people and saying, everybody's goal is to make 100 calls today. Is about sitting down with those people and saying, let's talk about your goals and what makes sense for you and what's manageable for you.
And you guys, I am from like the YM and 17 magazine give me a quiz and tell me what Disney princess I am days. And so I love a personality assessment. So is Adam. This is amazing.
We're probably the same Disney princess. Listen, you you never know. I I I am wearing an all pink today. So I'm okay to be a Disney princess today.
Oh, Yeah, I mean, you know what I mean? Like I I love a personality assessment and knowing a little bit more about a person and how they operate and what makes them what makes them tick. And so making sure that I'm not sitting down with somebody who wants that high velocity because maybe some some people do and if that's how they operate best, great. And I love a sales team sharing best practices.
I do not think that best practices mean that it's going to work for Dale and Adam if it works for Ashley. You know what I mean? I mean, it likely won't work for Dale, but that's It's it's so important to understand what people's lane of genius are and what's their like why back to like the mindfulness thing that you're talking about. Like if you're trying to force people into a lane of genius that just does not fit them, like I don't care what you do, it's not going to work.
Like you can they can be as motivated as possible for a minute. Yep. And then that'll just dissipate. Yep.
Absolutely. And I think that so, I love I love people with ADHD for sales. They're usually our like Most of them have it. Correct.
Myself included, which is why I'm always like grabbing something or messing around with something. Yes. Same. And but Undiagnosed, but I've diagnosed myself.
I think that there are these parts of it that make for a really great sales person. Yeah. Have usually high adjustment in the moment. You know, they can um speak on their feet pretty quickly and come up with things relatively quickly.
Um, but also people who are um like to have guard rails but not micromanaged. Like if I have to micromanage, I need you to be an adult. But I do want to be there for you and like be a team eight and be a team player and help coach you. But I don't want to have to say, it's Tuesday at 5:00.
Have you done your 50 phone calls today? Because that just doesn't feel good for anybody. Nope. You know, and I think that letting letting teammates talk through their own goals together and base things on whatever.
Like some people like to base things on daily goals. Some people would prefer to say, this is my weekly goals and I would prefer based this way and that's how my head space and my mental works better. And I think that in anytime you can give them a mental boost, give a team a a team member a mental boost to operate their way, um, you're going to get more production, you're going to get more efficiency and you're going to have a happier employee just in general. And working genius is the assessment that we when I the very first meeting that I walked into in this building, they were all going over their working genius assessments.
Um, and so I took one so I've taken that and a Hogan assessment is the other one that I've done that I've I did a long time ago that I I still lean on today and I know moments of, you know, like one of the things when I'm frustrated or or upset or getting derailed about something, I become very imaginative. Like I create stories in my head. Like I'm like, they're not going to they're not going to say yes and I'm never going to close this deal because they don't like my hair. You know, I mean, like I create they don't like Adam's hair either, so they're not going to.
All right, kids. All right, kids. On on that, it's time to move to some rapid fire. Um, so here's the rules, Ashley.
You get 10 words or less. Um, if you go over, every word you go over, I get to bop Dale uh a couple times. Um, so, you know, It's try. What uh what's one sales myth you wish would disappear?
Um, 1031. Tell me more. Uh, 10 calls to set three appointments to get one deal. Perfect.
And Totally agree. Those are good numbers. Um, Um, back to the question I have before. What are three attributes you look for that are non-negotiable at your hires?
Um, they must be a happy, positive person in general. Like, I can't have a sourpuss. I'm so I only get 10. Yeah.
That's okay. Positivity. Positivity is important to me. Yeah.
Integrity is important to me. Oh, I like that one. Because I like to That's on my list. I like you to care.
If your name is on something, I want you to care. So that's very important to me. Um, and then also I know that hard working and like we're not about the grind, right? I'm not saying that, but like you have to have passion.
I love that. Passion and want to work hard because you have passion. You hit two of my three. You hit two of my three.
I love that. What's what's your third, Dale? Integrity and hard work. Uh, coachability.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, good one. Yes.
That's such a good one. I forget about I mean, positivity positivity is a good one because Adam would never make it to your team, but but hard work and integrity, he is coachable sometimes. Okay, so you're you're well over 10 words, Dale. Shut up.
Um, Ashley, what's a leadership trait that you believe is undervalued? Uh, I don't know being friends. Like I know that everybody says don't be friends with your employees, but I'm Oh no, I I disagree. I I want to know personally.
I want to know about your wife and your kids and what makes you tick and like I want to know you as a human, not just a number. Absolutely. Absolutely. My my best friend to this day, um, is someone who I met when I hired him and used to work for me 20 years ago.
Um, and two to this day is my best friend. Right. Because why would you want to hire people that you don't enjoy being around? Yeah.
Shut up, Dale. I saw the look on his face. Next question, Dale. Let's let's have a fun one to wrap this up, Ashley.
Dream vacation destination. My favorite vacation destination? No, dream vacation. It doesn't have to be your favorite.
Somewhere like your dream, your dream. My dream vacation destination right now on the top of my list is the this is like cuz it's not like beaches, but the Canadian Rockies. Nice. I'll take mountains over beach all day long.
I know, I love the mountains. I'm I'm big I'm big mountains girl. So and I've never been there and my parents went two summers ago and they loved it. And so that is at the top of my list at the moment.
Cool. Very cool. Yeah. Ashley, thank you so much for joining the show.
Thank you for talking about how to humanize this crazy sales world that we live in. Uh, we're grateful that we got to spend some time with you. Of course, thank you for having me. It was wonderful.
Thank you.