#214 – Writing a handbook for salespeople w/ Dr Beth Rogers & Dr Jeremy Noad

Full episode transcript: 

​Please note that transcription is done by AI and may contain errors.

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Phil: Right. Okay. So a huge welcome, um, to the Sales Transformation podcast. I'm very pleased to welcome, uh, Dr. Jeremy Noad and Dr. Beth Rogers, who've been with us, uh, back in 2020, um, to talk about, uh, selling, uh, professionally, which is the first book I believe you wrote together.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Is that correct? Yeah. And Yeah. And now you hear again to talk about your second, um, literary, um, intervention, uh, uh, which is building the foundations for professional selling. Uh, so thank you very much for joining us.

Jeremy: Thank you very much.

Beth: Thank you for inviting us.

Jeremy: Thank you.

Phil: Um, I think before we get started, for those that haven't, uh, listened to the previous podcast, could we start just with a, a quick potted history?

Beth,

Be Beth, perhaps I can start with you, um, your background in sales and, uh, your experiences so far.

Beth: Okay. So I, I, I mean, I think I'm what they call a academic in that I started in the IT sector, um, then spent some time in consultancy, uh, back in it. And, uh, then as a full-time academic, uh, I have written, um, with co-authors at Cranfield, like, um, professor Malcolm McDonald, uh, largely on key account management, but some other marketing topics as well.

Uh, in 2020 I was running the masters in sales management at Portsmouth, and together with Germany, we produced a textbook for the sales apprenticeship, which was launched. And, uh, so that was selling professionally, structured very much according to the kbs, um, of the apprenticeship. And since then, we, um, have been thinking about where next, um, particularly when, uh, timing, uh, kind of prompted for either a second edition or something new and we decided to go for something new.

Phil: Okay. That's brilliant. Well, we'll talk more about that, shortly. Jeremy, over to you.

Jeremy: So yeah, thank you for inviting us back. Um, so my name is, uh, Jeremy Noad. Uh, I've been in sales for 30 plus years. Uh, range of roles from salesperson, uh, key account management, sales, managing sales, uh, director for the sort of past, uh, 15 years, more in the sort of sales enablement sales effectiveness space.

Uh, working with multinational teams, uh, on improving all things to do with sales. Uh, and like Beth said, we got, we got, well we first, um, interacted in 2006 when I was on the aforementioned master's course run by Beth, uh, at Portsmouth. Um, uh, and then I also, uh, studied with Beth, uh, doing my doctorates on sales, uh, benchmarking and sales performance.

Um, and then after that we sort of, uh, like I said, sat down in 20 19, 20 20 and started working on the first book. And, uh, then we moved on to, uh, other projects. We did different projects throughout the years as well. Uh, but uh, here we are today with the next book. Mm-hmm.

Beth: And isn't it interesting, Phil? Um, we have on the podcast today three people with PhDs on sales topics.

probably three of, about, you know, a dozen or so in the uk.

Phil: No,

it did occur to me that, that, uh, that was the, uh, that was the case. It's, uh, it it is quite rare to get people who've who've got a, a doctorate in on the topic of sales, uh, even rarer to get three

Jeremy: at the same

Beth: time

Phil: at the same time. But, but, I think, uh, I think the interesting sort of thread but that, perhaps connects us all is, uh, is the fact that we've all been practitioners, you know, not, not, not sort of in the academic

System all our lives and sort of come into perhaps academia a bit later, later on, are my, Am I, okay in saying that later on in our careers? I think I was in my mid forties when I decided that I would embark on, uh, on the doctorate, um, myself.

Jeremy: Yeah, I was, I was the same. I think I, I was, I was certainly 40 something.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: And, uh, definitely higher forties by summer I came out of that process. But, but yeah.

Phil: So did you both do your doctorates at the same time No.

Or

was Beth your tutor?

Beth: I, I, um, I,

You've finished certainly. I'd finished,

Jeremy: yes. You finished, um, after I completed the first year, and the first year was all about how to study, how to write everything else like that.

Yeah. So when he actually got down to the sales specific things

Phil: Right.

Jeremy: Beth had finished yours on, at make or buy decisions? Yes. Wasn't it make or by decisions? Uh, and became available.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: Uh, and obviously we, because we'd, uh, interacted earlier than that and we'd, uh,

We,

we produced our first academic journal paper mm-hmm.

Which got published and that sort of thing.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: Um, so it kind of worked nicely on the timing.

Phil: Yeah.

Yeah. Brilliant. Okay. Um, well, I, I remember the first book, uh, that you did. I, I'll just sort of go back to that. because, um, Because, um, uh, as you say, it was very much set up for the, uh, the, uh, designed around the KBS of the, it was level four, um, but actually very relevant for level six As well in in my, in our view. And in fact, it, it's on the reading list and of our Level six programme. And another doctor, Dr. Louise Sutton, who's not here with us, uh, just wants to say mm-hmm. It's nice that you're here today. Sorry, she can't be with us as well, but, um, it's still very much kind of referred to, and I remember when I read the book, that book, it was incredibly, um, in my view, sort of well constructed, well put together.

And I think I said on the last podcast, having, having read the book, you know, I, I learned a lot myself from reading it, which is great. You know, uh, covered all sorts of different topics. So, uh, so this is now, you know, six years later

Beth: mm-hmm.

Phil: You're now coming to, uh, the next publication. Um, so could you just talk me through what made you, you know, what prompted you, um, to write, uh, this next publication, building the Foundations for Professional Sally?

Beth: I think we wanted to broaden the appeal of a book. Um, focusing though still on onboarding new salespeople. Um, obviously new trainees we are very familiar with, but also people transitioning, um, from other roles into sales, um, and giving them support, but support that also works for the manager and the coach.

Um, so it's, uh, it's a handbook. Ums, so it's, it's quite definitive. Um, if you are in this situation, you do this, um, and, but with lots of, um, explanation as to why and how. Um, so it's designed to guide somebody new, um, give them a bit of support, um, but also be the mechanism whereby they have discussions with their coach, um, about how they're doing, how to get better, um, and hopefully to enable them to get to that critical point of contact with the customer quicker.

Phil: Right. Did you want to add to any?

Jeremy: Well, I was just thinking, I mean, one of the things we, I mean, we call the first one selling professionally. This one is the foundation professional selling. And I think a lot of people, and a lot of people in sales sort of end up in sales and we, and we've acted this idea of we and, and you, and you take it to the higher level with the level sixes and above.

Yeah. But these, uh, early career role switches, how do they start? 'cause a lot of sales knowledge when you get given the role, is it, it still sometimes, here's a list of customers, here's your laptop, here's your car keys go for. And so it's about how do we sort of structure it to say, okay, what's almost the minimum viable product we need to know

Phil: Okay.

Jeremy: To be in front of that customer,

Phil: right.

Jeremy: Without causing damage to the customer or our company by saying the wrong thing, promising the wrong thing, and things like that. And then, so it, it is all, for me, it is all about this sort of, um, how do we start, right? And how do we sort of put some structure around it.

So we are always talking about professionalism in sales, um, and how, how can we sort of give examples of that and how do we route it through there? And like Beth said, it's designed for this particular one, uh, early career, but also the coaches, so we can have that structure through.

Beth: Mm-hmm.

Phil: Yeah, I mean, I've, you've kindly sent me through a a number of pre-publication cha chapters, so you to have a, have, have a look at.

And so, uh, I, yeah, I agree. You know, the examples that you give are very practical. You, you know, you talk, you know, you give very simple examples of how to make contact, you know, with, with, with the customer. What, what's not a good way of doing it and what is a good way of doing it as well? So I can, uh, I can see that.

Can, can I just come back to you, describe it as a handbook. Now, I don't know if all of our listeners would understand the difference between a handbook and a book.

I mean,

say, say a handbook.

Jeremy: I, I, I think it's in the str the structure of it. So if we go back to the, uh, the first one, a lot of it is obviously a curriculum base, and a lot of it on the theory and the process and a lot of explanation.

What we're trying to do with the handbook is trying to distil it down to, to the critical view and spend more time about what good looks like, what not so good looks like. Um, here's, here's some questions you could ask yourself to sort of prompt you on this journey. Are you experiencing these things along with some more detailed sort of coaching questions to work with your mentor, having a sort of 30, 60 day plan right.

For each element. So, you know, you can often practise this check off that you've done this. So it is, it's a mixture of, uh, a little bit about the why and a lot about the how.

Phil: Okay. Yeah. I think that

Beth: it's a bit like a handbook for learning a new machine. Um, in the early stages you are going bit by bit through the handbook, setting it up.

Phil: Yeah.

Beth: Um, and as you learn, you are consulting the handbook less, but it's still there for support when you've got a gap in your knowledge and you need it. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

so,

uh, yes, it's, it's intended to be that practical, you know, the thing to have on your desk, on your desk

Phil: your desk at that time

Beth: as you go.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: Because we had great fun doing things like the glossary all because, you know, sales is special.

Like every business is special. We all have our special words for these things. I mean, right. I think we was looking before about kbs, Glos, the ksb knowledge, skills, behaviours, you know, you know, sort of thing. So it is like, okay, what's the customer, what's an account, what's the prospect? All these different things.

So as we go through it, because again, in an early career you can experience these things when you sat in a meeting and somebody's talking, talking, talking, and you're going like, what's the KPI? Or what do they mean by an account plan? Or, you know, different things. So as we go through it, it is that sort of level of practicality.

So all the, trying to answer the questions you don't wanna ask

Phil: Right.

Jeremy: When

in your team group sort of thing.

Phil: And one,

of, And one, one of the things, uh, one, one of the, um,

Trends. I, I, I'm not sure, you know, we haven't done any scientific research on it, but we're getting a, a lot of, uh, requests for support for people who aren't in a sales role, but actually they do have customer facing roles, which are incredibly important.

Beth: And that's a good point because, um, we have split the handbook into volumes.

Phil: Yeah. So talk, talk

Beth: about it. And this first volume could also be used by, um, somebody who is, uh, doing account-based marketing perhaps, and is supporting, um, sales people in their approaches to customers. Um,

uh,

then the second volume focuses very much on sales interactions.

The third volume being account management will have appeal to other people in account team roles. So, um, yes, it's, um, uh, important I think to recognise that salespeople are, are often in teams with, um, colleagues who also need to understand what professional selling is.

Phil: Yeah. What, um, I mean, I, I'm, um, you know, what sort of tr trends, if, if any, or or yeah, let's, let's keep the word trends.

Do you see happening in the market today that is relevant to the kind of practises that perhaps you describe in the book

Jeremy: I think the, obviously the big, the big one at the moment. And, and if you anybody jumps on LinkedIn at the moment, everything goes ai, ai, ai, you know. Um, but ai, we've gotta understand what it does for us and, and how, how it actually works together. And where we we're seeing, or, you know, in my day job where we're seeing ai, it's, it's, it is a supporting function.

It's like, you know, it's Excel, it's word, it's PowerPoint, it's a marketing brochure. It's just part of the toolkit. It's not the thing in itself. And I think what we still need to have is that strong foundation around product knowledge, understanding your customers. We can't hand that over to the ai. We can get more effective at it.

We can get more targeted. But the AI piece is this sort of supported human to human interface sort of thing. I mean, we do see tools, uh, nowadays and we, we, we use one ourselves, which basically says if we are buying something and it's under a certain amount, the AI tool negotiates for us.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: Well how do you handle that if you're the salesperson?

Because from the other perspective, you could be a key customer of that salesperson and he doesn't wanna get put arguing with the ai.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: Yeah. And, and so how do we get these things together? So we are confident And, and, and the second, you know, I know we're talking about the first one, the second one's about, it's called Selling with Control.

And it's not about controlling the evil mastermind sense. Mm-hmm. But it's having a structure so that we can work through the buying processes that we're gonna face, which are gonna be AI enhanced. A lot more data being put to you to sort of say, can you, can you solve my problem?

Beth: Yeah.

Jeremy: But it still goes back to we still buy, uh, from people.

We still need the trust. We still need the ethics. We still need that sort of skillset to think strategically in a conversation. Otherwise, we're all gonna be sat there having a conversation holding our phones, which is just doing a prompt in, in the AI to tell us, what's next? And so it's about sort of saying, okay, even though we have tools and technology, you know, we still need to do the work.

We still need to think, we still need to interact together. Yeah. And what do we need to do to do that?

Phil: Yeah. No, hundred percent, you that, that, uh, kind of make, makes sense. And Sorry, Beth, do you want to add to that?

Beth: Because I, I, I agree with, um, with Yeah. What Jeremy said about trends, um, and yeah, I mean, I know that from a purchasing point of view, more and more automation is desirable.

Um, but it is interesting to note that, um, some purchasing professionals, um, are talking about more and more, um, the, the value, the consultancy level, um, connection that they want with suppliers for, for big and strategic purchases, obviously. Um, so that doesn't go away. Um, you can have more and more AI at certain routine touch points.

Um, but the, uh, the strategic thinking about the relationship between a supplier and a customer, um, it's still done by humans.

Phil: Yeah.

Beth: And humans. As, as Jeremy said, you need to trust each other and rely on each other's professionalism.

Phil: Yeah, I, the, I mean, what you've just said is very consistent with, um, a piece of research we did at the end of last year.

I'm not, I'm not sure if you, if I've shared it with you, but, um, so we went back, in fact, to, to the doctorate questions that I posed, you know, how do customers want to be sold to as a shortened version of the title. It was a Much longer title actually, in real life. But, um, but, uh, so we went back to exactly the same questions that we asked, uh, with some context questions added around, um, technology and its use in making procurement decisions.

The research was only with buyers. It wasn't with salespeople. So wanting to know what they look for from salespeople. And, uh, one of the interesting nuances that came outta that research was, um, uh, which relates to this role of relationships and, and, and some of the buyers use this word sort of intellectual, uh, honesty and intellectual dishonesty.

You know, um, two different people using this word intellectual, which you could say is a bit of an oxymoron in sales, they normally attach the word intellectual to sales. And it may be slightly, uh, may,

you know,

I think the nuance is important for new starters as, as indeed with people who've been in sales for many years.

Um, but essentially I think that the reason why they mention this word is because of ai, because the, uh, uh, the, the, the counterintuitive sense of AI is it, it'll dumb down the sales process because, you know, people may be over reliant on AI to develop outreach emails, for example. I know you talk about emails and you talk about that first contact.

And of course, you know, we,

I I suspect you get approached all the time by, by these awful outreach.

Jeremy: Yeah. And I think that, that, that is a trend because obviously, uh, you know, from that perspective, AI can help me generate slightly personalised hundreds of emails I could put through LinkedIn to these various people.

Yes. But then you receive them. Uh, I got one yesterday and it was like, yeah, I understand all the words. But there wasn't a sentence in there as it were. The, the, the, the, all the words were there. But

Phil: yeah,

Jeremy: it didn't, I I, I was left having, because I I I, I, I was aware of the person, so I sort of spent a bit of time looking at it.

Uh, you know, I read it and I couldn't understand the basics of why, what they're saying, why they're saying it, what they wanted me to do with it. You know, I, because they had the words, but because they didn't have the intellect. And, and therefore the context and resonance behind it to actually turn it into something that I can take away and understand and say, oh, yeah, what this might be worth having a chat with.

And this is from a, what I'd call a tier one software supplier as well. So, you know, but I can see that, you know, when we are pressurised in sales organisations to do more, do more, we need to fill the pipeline, we need to close more, we need to win, whatever, all these sorts of top down things to achieve, uh, other people's targets, then the, um, pull to be as prolific as possible.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: Using AI is saying, okay, we we're getting the actions, we're getting the activities. Uh, and I, I was reflecting on this in, in on an article last week. It's not about your actions and your activities, and we talk about it in, in this book. Yeah. It's about what does the customer do after these interaction activities?

Does the customer, does this move the customer on a journey or not? Yeah. If you've done 1,001 emails and, uh, posts and likes and shares and all the wonderful things that people tell us to do, has it made a difference to the decision making process of the customer?

Phil: Hmm.

Jeremy: Because if it hasn't, why we doing it?

Phil: It's quite a difficult one now because we, we've had some, uh, we, we, we've had some guests onto the podcast. You talk about sort the role of marketing to generate sales qualified leads. And there was this, uh, stat that, uh, was mentioned on one of the recent ones, which is that, you know, 95% of your potential addressable market and actually not in the market at that point in time.

It's only 5%. And so a lot of the, the, the, the marketing that's done is, is, is more about brand awareness. So at the point at which they become interested Yeah. You know, they, they, uh, you know, you then take them on that. that.

journey.

Jeremy: Yeah. You have that position done then.

Phil: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think there's research that suggests that if you, if you haven't done that initial, I mean, marketeers would say this, wouldn't they?

You know, haven't done the, the branding beforehand. The chances of getting into that five percenter of quite, quite

are

quite remain. I did.

Yeah. So, so for the people that will be, uh, sort of reading this, I, you know, the roles that they have, will they be involved in doing outreach type work? Or are you assuming that they're kind of picking up leads that may come through and then following them on a sales journey?

Jeremy: So we talk a little bit about everything and I think, yeah, uh, it is right at the start it's about understanding your company, understanding your customer.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: Part of that is leveraging the brand and the brand building activities I think is different than the sales outreach activity. So brand building is a bit like, you know, as they've always done in the motor trade, they advertise cars every day.

Nobody buys a car every day.

Phil: No.

Jeremy: But it either reinforces you've made a good decision 'cause you see your car on on the, tv or it positions that product in your mind when you are ready to start thinking about buying. And that's the, a lot of the purpose about the brand and the

brand's,

brand messaging varies, but, you know, quality, reliability, high standards, high values, that sort of thing.

That is part of it. But what we are saying is, is at that sort of sales outreach, which is when okay, we are leveraging the brand behind us and all that good outreach. But when we're gonna talk and say, okay, I think I've, you've got a problem, I think we can fix it in really simple foot terms.

Then

that's where we've got a weakness.

So it's that sort of, once we've got the marketing qualified leads, then we go to the sales qualified leads and we've sort of had an interaction, and then we're trying to move from that qualified lead into that first discussion, which should be about the customer, not about you or your company should be about the customer.

Phil: Yeah. How

Jeremy: make you get that?

Phil: Do you know it's so basic, isn't it? But it, but it's so often

not done. people are proud of who they work for. People are proud of what, what they do and everything else like that. And, you know, you meet somebody for the first time, what do you do? Oh, I do this, this for, for such a social company, they want to do this.

Jeremy: And therefore, instinctively you want to tell the people you're reaching up out that this is a great place I work and they've done lots of good things.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: Whereas actually that wants to come a little bit later.

Phil: Yeah.

No

I agree. It's, uh, I, um, I'm often surprised, um, when, when delivering, you know, say workshops for clients, how, how, um, people are often put in the role of sales without, without any training at all.

You know, that,

Beth: Yes.

Phil: Uh, we, we've got a particular project at the moment with, um, an organisation that, um, that collects cash and moves around the country and, and, uh, they've got a, you know, a team of people are handling multi million,

uh, pound contracts with, with, with their clients. Uh, and none of them have been on a sales training course.

None of them. Um, they've come through operations into sales,

Beth: and that tends to encourage people to, I mean, obviously be very proud of the capabilities of the product or, or the process that, that they are, uh, representing. Um, but, um, they may not be able to see it in the customer's terms as to, you know, what, what is this actually doing for the customer day to day to make them more efficient, um, more confident to Yeah.

You know, to, uh, to succeed.

Phil: Yeah. It's, yeah, it's interesting. I, I just wonder because we're, we're sort of so involved in the, in the sector that we sometimes may perhaps you, you know, with the book you've, you've seen this, but sometimes you assume that people have got the basics, but actually perhaps many people haven't.

Is that, is that something you'd like to

Beth: Yes, I, I, I think that, uh, historically, uh, there has been a tendency to put people in sales roles and effectively expect them to sink or swim. Uh, well expect them to swim and just, you know, sweep up if they sink, um, which is these days high risk because you want, and people, employers, as in the, the ladies edition of the International Journal of Sales Transformation, um, you know, you have their employers sales leaders talking about how difficult it is to recruit good sales talent.

Phil: Yeah.

Beth: Um, so when you do that, you need to provide support. Yeah. Um, and invest in helping those people to succeed and succeed quicker.

Phil: Yeah. So it, um, I mean, do you want to talk through the way you've structured volume one, you know,

and to

go through, it would be good to give, uh, you know, the listeners a chance just to, um, you can

have to

Beth: flick through it as I go, just to

Phil: remind

myself.

yeah. Um, just just the structure the structure of it. So what could, what could people expect, and then what sort of topics are covered in this first volume?

Beth: Well, we are trying to recreate the kind of conditions into which a sales trainee is brought. Um, and so first of all, we talk about the understanding that they need of the company.

They're going to be a brand representative, so they need to understand, um, what the company is, um, what it claims for itself in terms of, uh, mission, vision, brand, the resources and capabilities that the company can apply, um, to helping customers. Um, it moves on to talk about how the company solves problems for customers.

So yes, we do talk about products and their life cycles, um, service quality. Um, but we are looking at it from the point of view, how does this translate to what the customer's trying to do?

Phil: Okay.

Beth: Because that is often the way, isn't it? You, you get your company induction, then you get your product training, and then only then do you start to talk about the customers that you've been given to look after.

So the next step is to analyse those customers, look at where they sit in the company's portfolio, um, look at how you are going to structure your activity around them. And then, um, we start to plan actually approaching those customers interacting with those customers. Um, so plan first and then making that, that first contact, which as you say is where this kind of, you know, this would be a weak way to do it.

This would be a stronger way to do it. That's, that's really where I think, um, that kind of, uh, constant reminder of, um, the, the ways in which you can be quicker, um, coming to play.

Phil: That's

very good. Yeah, I can, uh, I can see that it, it's, uh, going to be a very helpful tool, you know, for a lot, lot of people, um, sort of out there in that role.

So, apart from the podcast with us, so what other things are you doing to promote the book?

Beth: Well,

we've, uh, we've done some

articles.

Jeremy: done some articles on LinkedIn and, and, uh, that's just an article on onboarding. Mm-hmm. With the journal sales. With the journal. Journal, yeah. Uh, so got that. Uh, we are talking to people, um, doing the, the usual things on social media, uh, but

but

it's probably going to be more a sort of, not, not necessarily a one-to-one sort of sales activity, but if you imagine you, you, you've got a sales team of different standards then as sales leaders, this could be part of your plan Yeah. and, uh,

Phil: because there's a coaching dimension.

You've mentioned before, there's a, could you talk more about that? 'cause I think that's a,

Jeremy: yeah, so that's

Phil: an

Jeremy: each, each sort of chapter, so then sort of split into maybe four, four topics.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: And what we need to do is, obviously, as you know, 'cause very few people read, certainly, uh, nonfiction books, cover to cover, start at the beginning, finish at the end.

You know, it doesn't really work about that. But each sections we wanna get you to ask questions yourself. So you've, you've read this piece. Think about this topic, this topic, this topic. But where we spent some time was, uh, across the whole book is one of the, one of the appendixes report is what we call the coaching question bank.

And each, each book's got this, which if for each chapter here's sort of 10, eight to 10 questions that you could, you could prepare, wait for your next one-to-one with your manager, or if your manager's got this right, uh, coach, they can think these are the questions which help us demonstrate that we have acquired the knowledge, applied that knowledge in, in terms of a situation, um, or, or behaviour or or skill, whatever it may be.

But the key thing is about, because we know, um, you know, I used to very old statistic now, but I think it is from the Americans and it's basically said, you know, you go on a course and within 30 days, forget it.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: It's all gone.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: It's only through the application. So having some coaching questions, having some self-reflection questions is just us trying to help you, uh, retain that knowledge and retain that structure.

So when we talk about a process, we don't go into massive swim lanes and things like that. We go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, this. If you covered these things

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: Then you're in a good place to move to the next point. Um, and, and, and the questions and coaching around is, is there built within the book, so whether you are working with, you've got it yourself or whether Yeah.

Because therefore you could go in to your one-to-one with your manager and say, here's the thing, here's the things I've been working on. And they could either say, oh, let me have a look at this and ask you a question, or you kind of prepared for the questions that you might ask. Right.

Phil: That's

Brilliant. Okay.

Well,

I think we probably co have we covered enough about the book do you think? Or is there anything Yeah, I that I haven't asked you that I should have asked you? I think,

Jeremy: well, I just think, you know, we, one, one of the things is we, we sort of talk about a, uh, a 30, 60, 90 day plan.

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: And basically it's just to walk us through as we go and as, as we're very much focused on being an early career professional.

Yeah. But just to walk you through a manageable choice. 'cause there's no point in saying after you read this book, you'll be successful, you'll do everything.

Phil: Right.

Jeremy: It's

a case of Okay, as we go along, then we should by the end of the, and yeah. If we complete the book and do the coaching by the end of the first month,

Phil: yeah.

Jeremy: This is where I think it should be. And if you're not there, maybe you need to go back and check this out. This is where you should be after 60 days, this is where you should, and a final point saying, okay, this is what the steady stage expectations as a sales professional, this is a standard that you, you should consider setting yourself to say, in all that I do, this is what I will do.

And

Phil: Yeah.

Jeremy: And I think that's a useful, uh, thing, uh, to guide people.

Phil: Yeah. A hundred percent.

Well,

great. Well thanks very much for coming and sharing Volume one. I doubt you'll have to come back volume two and volume three.

I

Beth: Yes. Very happy

Phil: do so.

as well.

So when,

when do you think volume two and three, do you have a sort of timeline

Beth: for when Well, volume two is in production.

That's about the sales call as we would see it in. Um, uh, and, um, so that, um, probably end of August. Oh, soon, quite soon. Okay. Um, and

Um, And.

then volume three, we are still writing. Okay. Um, but, uh, yeah, um, we, we haven't been too ambitious about the timing for volume three certainly by the end of the year possibly.

Phil: Oh, good. You would write that one fairly quickly, given your knowledge on the topic.

Jeremy: Yeah, and I think we're, we're about 80% there I think already, because obviously these things take time. Um, and so whilst you might get older, they bought one out in July. They bring it out in August. How can they write a book in the month?

They haven't been a book in the month. It's gone back to sort of November, 2024 and Yeah. Yeah.

And, and, and writing and creating and, and structuring and outlining and redoing it and getting some input about saying, what, what do we need to cover? And then, pieces are, it's a bit like, oh, what is it?

A model T four, you know, the assembly line is, you know, we've progressed on chapter three for book three, but we still need to do chapter one and book two. So, so it depends how you go to, to make sure we cover the. The outcomes that we hope people can get from these things. I think that's the other thing.

Each, each of the chapters has an outcome. Yeah. By the end of this chapter, you, you should be able to do this. 'cause that helps you understand why, to invest your time in reading the chapter, doing the things and things like that. So overall, it's gonna have taken over two years to to, to put it together. It is just, it's all happening.

It is all becoming visible at the end. You haven't seen all the, uh,

Beth: course the

George: progress.

Jeremy: Yeah. And the publisher always wants to get it out there.

Phil: Yeah. That's fantastic. congratulations on, on, on getting it published.

You,

Jeremy: you

Phil: I know How How hard it is to, uh, to get these things done. So, brilliant.

And, um, I think just before, uh, we finish, I just want to do a, a, uh, just say a few words because for, for the listeners, be both, um, Beth and, and, uh, Jeremy,

uh, uh, absolute, um, sort of experts in the topic of sales We've done a huge amount to try and raise, you know, the, the, the concept of professionalism in sales for your work with level four, you know, with the Journal of Sales Transformation.

Jeremy has been our go-to person for the academic articles I think for some years. And, uh, and just it's great to have you here on the, on the podcast again. So look forward to seeing you again.

Jeremy: thank you very much.

Thank you.

Phil: Thank you.

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