In this episode, Wesleyne interviews Harry Sims, an experienced account executive and leader in the sales industry.

They discuss the importance of networking and building connections, as well as the impact of good leadership.

Harry shares his journey and the struggles he faced in career building, emphasizing the need for an experimental mindset.

They also delve into the concept of finding efficiency in outbound sales and the transition to running and automation.

The conversation concludes with a discussion on the challenges of rapid iteration and turnover in early-stage sales.

In this conversation, Harry Sims and Wesleyne discuss various aspects of sales, including finding consistency in sales processes, the importance of sales skills, knowing your strengths in sales, the value of sales playlists, personal and professional impact, and cultural adaptation.

Takeaways

• Networking and building connections are crucial in the sales industry.
• Good leadership involves understanding and empathizing with the experiences of your team members.
• An experimental mindset is essential for overcoming challenges and finding success in career building.
• Efficiency is key in outbound sales, and a focus on targeting and measurable metrics can drive results. Finding a consistent and effective sales process takes time and iteration.
• Sales skills are crucial for success, and not all salespeople are suited for the same roles.
• Knowing your strengths and focusing on what you enjoy in sales can lead to greater fulfillment and success.
• Sales playlists, or living sales playbooks, can be a valuable tool for onboarding and ongoing sales training.
• Personal experiences, such as becoming a parent and adapting to new cultures, can have a significant impact on how we show up in the world.

Chapters

00:00- Introduction and Background

01:06- Meeting Wesleyne and the Impact

03:37- The Value of In-Person Events

04:58- Building Connections and Demonstrating Care

07:11- The Power of Good Leadership

09:18- Uncovering Challenges and Providing Solutions

10:18- Overcoming Struggles in Career Building

12:03- Embracing the Experimental Mindset

13:39- Finding Efficiency in Outbound Sales

17:25- Product-Led Growth and Automation

20:02- The Challenge of Rapid Iteration

20:45- Navigating Turnover in Early-Stage Sales

21:05- Finding Consistency in Sales Processes

23:04- The Importance of Sales Skills

25:19- Knowing Your Strengths in Sales

28:21- The Value of Sales Playlists

33:37- Personal and Professional Impact

36:06- Cultural Adaptation

38:17- Contact Information

Connect with Harry

LinkedIn- linkedin.com/in/harry-personal-prospecting

Website- personal-prospecting.com/ (Company)

Ever wish you could pick Wesleyne's brain? Now you can. Check out AskWesleyne.Com to find the answers to all your sales, leadership, mindset and business question.

For daily tips on sales and leadership connect with Wesleyne

LinkedIn- linkedin.com/in/wesleyne 

Instagram- @wesleynewhittaker

Tiktok- https://www.tiktok.com/@thewesleynewhittaker 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/transformedsales  

Youtube- www.youtube.com/@wesleynewhittaker 

Website- TransformedSales.com   

Email- podcast@transformedsales.com  

Wesleyne (: 00:01

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Transforms Sales Podcast. Today I am delighted to have Harry Sims with me. How are you Harry?

Harry Sims (: 00:10

Hey, I'm fine, thank you, how are you?

Wesleyne (: 00:11

I'm doing fantastic. Let me tell you a bit about Harry. He was a bang average AE, which is an account executive, with a strange love for prospecting. If there's one thing he's good at is chasing strangers for meetings. So he did that almost every day for the last decade and built four SDR teams from scratch. He advised a few others. Some were great, some were not. He got lucky by hiring amazing people. Their success paid the bill.

Subsequently, he pressured them to write nice things about him in his recommendation section. He publishes on www. and will never be replaced by AI automation or ad spend. The end, full stop, period. So, Harry, tell us how did you start your career and how did you get to where you are today?

Harry Sims (: 01:06

Thank you. I thought we could tell everyone how we met as well. If you just fill that in. Yeah. Okay. Shall I go or you go?

Wesleyne (: 01:09

Oh yeah, sure. Tell everybody. How did we meet? How did we?

Yeah, no, you tell the story. I want to hear the story.

Harry Sims (: 01:19

So I'm at an event and I didn't really go to many events in Nashville. And Wesleyne came up to me and instantly I felt like this like warmth. And I'm not even really like a big energy person or star signs or anything. And she proceeded to like very carefully grill me. And I wanted to give her every piece of information. And then she gave me some incredible, very pointed advice. She completely got my mindset and my world.

And I sat on it and thought about it for about two months, which I tend to do. And then one day I decided I'm doing what she said and it made me money. It gave me much more confidence and it was all rooted in her experience, which is really important for me because I think we'll probably get into this in the rest of the pod, but I think good leaders should have walked at the shoes of their people.

And that's exactly how I felt that day. And it really made a big impact on me. So thank you so much.

Wesleyne (: 02:25

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I usually definitely don't start podcasts like that, but I wanna stick there with what you brought up. And so we met at an event and you say you don't really typically go to events, but that day, why did you go? What about this particular event drew you there?

Harry Sims (: 02:30

Yeah.

I'll tell you guys.

Harry Sims (: 02:40

No.

Harry Sims (: 02:47

Um, I'm I've seen this company ambition for a while in the space. Actually didn't know much about what they did. Um, Brian LaBelle, I think he's my peer over there runs self development. Uh, he's a really good guy. I've hired people from companies he's been at and he invited me and it's around the corner and, um, I really, I really, really enjoyed it. Um, actually meeting people in, in the physical world. I'm, I'm better at approaching strangers in, on the internet or.

via email or call calls, but it was a big eye opener. And I went to a Pavilion event the week before and I was kind of like, oh my God, I should really actually start communicating with people about who they are as people instead of trying to sell them things all the time. And I kind of, I regret not going to many more events in my, in the last decade or so.

Wesleyne (: 03:37

Ah, but that's good. And you know, I think that in this post pandemic world, we are so stuck in our offices. We're so stuck in the place that we've been in for so long. We forget about the human connection. And the dots that I wanna connect for the listener are, if you are just doing what you need to do, you're inviting people to an event, you're prospecting, you're doing those things, you extend an invitation to someone and what...

happens a lot of times when we're in that prospecting piece, we get disenfranchised because your prospect is not in the buying cycle. But you were there. You were like, I got to get out of this office. So Brian reached out to you. Boom, you went. It was a great, it was an absolutely great conference. And then this little woman comes up to you and says, what's going on?

Harry Sims (: 04:25

UGH

Harry Sims (: 04:29

Yeah, yeah. And I liked how you kind of qualified my, my current state as well. You could have just blurted out, Hey, this is what you should do. But you didn't you kind of got to know me and demonstrated some care and trust like to build trust. And then you pivoted towards your journey. And it was like, I was like, Oh, yeah, this is a sign. This is a sign, you know. And yeah, it made a big impact on me. Thank you.

Wesleyne (: 04:58

So let's talk about again, because I think that one of the things that people don't do as often as they should is network and build these connections. So in that moment, you said, I demonstrated care and trust and connection. Can you share with the listeners specifically what I did or the questions I asked or how you felt a quick connection?

Harry Sims (: 05:21

Yeah, I think the first thing is the smile, right? You're coming up from a very friendly perspective. And I think that's just a subconscious. You look like you have a lot of energy, and I want to talk to you. And then I think you asked about where I am workwise and my perspective on prospecting. And I'm very opinionated there. And I think.

I think then it transitioned to sales training and how we do that today. And I was explaining, you know, I've only, I usually work for early stage. So I'm the ops person, the leader, the enablement person, the, there's SDR, the recruiter. And I think we bonded over that because I think that's, Gerald was talking about it on one of your pods. It's a huge gap.

Wesleyne (: 06:12

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 06:15

And we kind of tagged the coach, the trainer onto the role of already in a very busy human being who can't actually do a good job, even if they had all the hours in the day. It's not possible to cover the bases. And also we live in this walled garden theory world, right? Where we just look in our own walls. When someone like you has perspective from all these different calls, right? And all these different environments, because you don't get that when you work for one.

Wesleyne (: 06:42

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 06:43

your actual solutions to problems are going to be much more varied and have much more volume behind them because you've seen, tried and tested. And I think that angle is something sales leaders should look for more and just be vulnerable about their shortcomings. And guess what? There's people out there that have talked to a hundred sales leaders about that very specific problem and probably worked out the solutions.

Um, you do these sales strategy audits. It's, um, that's an incredible CTA, right? That's an incredible offer. And, um, that's kind of, I felt like you were kind of doing that for me, but with my career, you were trying to work out where I could potentially go and, um, yeah, I think I told you, I tried and failed a bit of consulting and, and you kind of picked up one of the problems that I was doing, which was giving a lot away for free too much.

And the moment I started just saying, Hey, this is my offer. I can't do everything for free, but here's what's off. Here's what's there. Um, things started changing and I think I just needed a boost and a confidence from someone that had done it, you know? So thank you again.

Wesleyne (: 07:58

And you know, I so what I want to do is I want to kind of break this down because it's so this podcast is kind of different for me and no two podcasts are the same, but almost kind of like looking at what's lean from the other side and then I get to dissect what I did. I never remember what I tell people I just it is just inherently inside me. So one of the keys that I heard that you say that I did.

Harry Sims (: 08:11

That's it!

Harry Sims (: 08:18

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 08:22

And again, I really wanna talk about this in a networking standpoint. When you meet somebody that you don't know, cause I didn't know you before we had this conversation, right? And this is how you make networking effective. So very quickly, I was able to build that no-like trust, probably within two or three minutes. And I did it by asking you really good open-ended questions that uncover the challenges or the problems that were specific to you.

Harry Sims (: 08:29

No, no, you didn't at all.

Harry Sims (: 08:34

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 08:50

And when you do that, just like in a good discovery, you get people to talk about themselves, right? And then I didn't have an agenda because I really didn't have an agenda. I stuck with where you were. Oh, this is the challenge that you're having? What about this? Have you tried that? Let me ask you a few more qualifying questions. And then I gave you a solution. I gave you hope, right? And so giving you just a little bit of hope, giving you just a little bit of a solution, it stuck with you. And you said you sat with it for two months.

because again, your prospects, your buyers, the people you're talking to aren't always ready. Let them marinate. And so when we talk about the magical 12 to 14 touches or 20 touches, however much it takes, you have to remember that people aren't always ready to execute an act. And I think that one of the things that I did for you, and I never know who I'll impact or how I'll impact them, is there was something inside you that

Harry Sims (: 09:22

Yeah.

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 09:35

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 09:47

you felt a lack of confidence about that you didn't verbalize to anyone else. And because I was able to uncover that and help you find hope in a spot that felt hopeless, you were like, I got this. And then the magical thing is you came back and said, well, Celine, I tried it. I tried it, how can I help you? And now we're in this place. And so, yes, you did. He sent me screenshots, like I made money.

Harry Sims (: 09:51

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 09:58

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 10:04

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 10:07

Yeah, I sent you receipts too. Yeah. I'm getting the big ones soon. Trust me, I'm getting the big ones and I'm gonna show them to you. Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 10:18

Yes, every win, every win. And you know, I'm everybody, somebody told me one of my friends was like, Whistlin, you're the biggest hype man. I said, no, I'm a woman. I was like, I'm the biggest hype woman. I am the hype woman because we have to celebrate our successes. So let's kind of roll back and let's kind of talk about you professionally. Some of the things that you have, what would you say is the biggest struggle?

Harry Sims (: 10:32

Yes.

Wesleyne (: 10:43

that in your career building these teams and working in startups that you've had to overcome.

Harry Sims (: 10:50

Um, I've only recently even got to a good place with it. It's, um, I usually build the first outbound motion that a company has. And I usually am the first person running it, finding the plays and scaling a team if I can. Um, there is so many variables completely out of your control that I wasted a lot of time worrying about and even just like.

Sometimes just throwing my hands up and being like well, I can't win right and I think that was the wrong perspective The perspective that I tried to settle on now is And I'll give you some examples of the variables right market turning Competitors doing something different stuff You're not even aware of to be honest and we attribute cause to these things without ever knowing if that really is the cause

Harry Sims (: 11:44

So deals not closing, AEs not doing their job with the opportunities that you run, people on your team not doing what they should be doing. Like lots of these things are actually out of your direct control. You can have an influence or be aware of them, which is useful. But seeking to control them is never going to work. And the perspective I try to like land on now, and I have to remind myself, is that this is all just one big game and an experiment.

Wesleyne (: 12:03

Hmm.

Harry Sims (: 12:14

and you don't always win. And losing is actually the best piece of feedback you can get. And you have a sandbox. Imagine like, I don't know if you're a gamer or not, but I'm not even really a gamer, but I see it. There's these games like Skyrim, right? Skyrim is one of those games you can run around in the big world and do all this crazy stuff like Zelda. And there's games like Tetris, right? Where there's very limited things you can do, but it's safe and easy and controllable. Skyrim is mad stuff going on.

Wesleyne (: 12:37

Mm-hmm. Mm.

Harry Sims (: 12:44

You have to first make a decision. Do you want to play Skyrim or do you want to play Tetris? I'm an early stage guy. I want to play Skyrim. I don't want to run around and kill monsters and try and work out new things that no one's ever done, because that's what gives me joy. But the consequence of that is you don't know what's coming. You don't know what's in the forest around the corner. And instead of worrying about it, you kind of have to just run into it and be like, hey, and react.

Wesleyne (: 12:50

Mmm.

Harry Sims (: 13:13

And especially early stage, especially today, I think having that kind of experimental, I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to keep trying different things. I don't like, you know, too much stagnation is, has been much better for my life, my people, the people that I work with as well. Um, and there's lots of ways that translates into the sales or, but we can get into that and, you know, later, if you want.

Wesleyne (: 13:39

Yeah, and so, you know, I think one of the most profound things that you said is you have to decide. And I like to say we have to pre-decide what we're going to do. Because when I'm working with organizations, it's like they want to change 10 things at one time. And my chemist brain will not allow me to do that. Right. One variable at a time. OK, just one thing. Right. And if because if we change too much at one time, as you said, we don't know what works.

Harry Sims (: 13:49

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 13:56

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 14:08

place of this early stage motion and you're trying to get quick wins, how do you decide what to change, when to change, if something is successful or not successful?

Harry Sims (: 14:18

Yeah. Oh, that's for me. I was gonna ask you for the scientific method, but we should. I remember it now. You were telling me about your transition from chemistry at the event. It's another thing. Your story was very good, your storytelling. And that's, we all know about that. How do we decide? It depends on every single play, but I highly recommend that everyone focuses on finding efficiency first. And you need to find efficiency between your inputs and outputs.

And here's some examples. A healthy real reply rate. I want to receive a reply from one in four buyers, 25%. Okay, that's an easy stat everyone can measure. And that's on across all channels. Account hit rate or contact hit rate. Active accounts, 100 in a month, and you wanna book 10 meetings, you have a 10% account hit rate. There's lots of other efficiency metrics you can look at, but those are just really simple ones. And start with your crawl.

The crawl is for 100 contacts, my goal is this, real reply rate, account hit rate, and just focus there. Keep consistency with your targeting, who, why, when, your offers, one or two offers, not too many. It's gotta be more than a meetings with sales, a sales strategy audit, that is a perfect educational event. And you've gotta be consistently on how you measure.

And all that stuff comes before you start talking about cadences, tools, processes, blah, all the boring stuff, to be honest. And you define your crawl. And if you can hit your crawl, you then go to Run. And Run is, hey, I'm going to add 500 volume, same audience, same targeting, same offers. I'm going to tweak this and this in my messaging. I'm going to try different variations. But guess what? I'm going to go for 40% real reply rate. I'm going to go for a 25% account hit rate.

And it's this cool walk run. Before you add volume, you focus on efficiency. Because if you don't have efficiency at the start, you go nowhere. Because as you add volume, typically, not always, your efficiency is going to go down. That's just the nature of humans. We think we have like, as something interrupts our pattern, we respond to it. But over time, it becomes less effective, right?

Harry Sims (: 16:43

So that's kind of how I think early stage. But again, every sort of environment and play is slightly different.

Wesleyne (: 16:49

And so I always think about these things kind of like building blocks, like Lego, right? So we have our efficiency, we have our, I like to call them KPIs, like the things that we're looking at, leading lagging indicators. And now we're ready to run. How do we know when we're ready to run?

Harry Sims (: 17:05

Yeah. So it's interesting. My recent role, I'm leaving tomorrow. I was in product-led Growth World. So run for me was move the play to the product or automate.

Wesleyne (: 17:20

Wait, I'm sorry, did you say you're leaving your world tomorrow? So you're going to a new company?

Harry Sims (: 17:22

Yeah.

I will be soon. It's not quite finished yet but uh you're like why am I interviewing this guy? He's not even really employed.

Wesleyne (: 17:29

Okay, I'm...

Wesleyne (: 17:34

That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. I just heard that. Go ahead. Proud at Lit Growth. Go ahead.

Harry Sims (: 17:39

Yeah, so the run for us, the Nirvana, if it was possible, was slow manual outreach is me, bit faster, higher volume outreach is me. But then the run and the rocket, the spaceship is let's build this experience into product. And then maybe let's automate parts of it so you can add real volume without it costing you a load of time.

Wesleyne (: 17:48

It's not fair. Sorry.

Wesleyne (: 17:58

Mm.

Harry Sims (: 18:06

That was the Nirvana I was in. I was trying to find that. We had a couple that should have been built into product. They still may be. But the run side is it's really because I think of players as starting with targeting. You have to have the audience available to add the volume. And I promote puddles. Very small pockets of your ICP is the starting point.

So what you have to first do is see, do we have the available pool of people, right? And I did this with user gems and champion chasing and tracking job changes quite well at Scratchpad. User gems just gave us incredible volume because we were able to use product data to identify champions we didn't know existed because they'd never interacted with our team, go-to-market team or support. They'd just been using the product.

Wesleyne (: 19:05

Hmm

Harry Sims (: 19:06

So we had no idea who they were, and user gems allowed us to identify those. So first find the volume, but then keep an eye on efficiency as you drive that volume through. If you can maintain efficiency or just slightly dip, you're winning at that point. But I'll tell you, the big change I'm seeing in early stage outbound is people don't have a play anymore. They have about six.

And they rapidly iterate and have to try and find new ones constantly because you get this advantage and it works for a quarter. And then the next quarter something happens. And I think that's where some of the green SDR struggle or the leaders that push this top down very formulaic playbook. Because by the time you've written the playbook, trained it, coached it, enabled the team, then got data to see if it's working. It's too late. You're behind.

Wesleyne (: 19:46

Mm-hmm.

Harry Sims (: 20:02

It's fish and chip paper. You're probably fired in today's early stage gas war. It is, you see it. Am I wrong? You get about nine months if you're lucky.

Wesleyne (: 20:03

Mm-hmm.

Wesleyne (: 20:09

Uh, no, no.

Wesleyne (: 20:15

It is actually, I mean, and the thing that you're saying, it is, this is the reason why the turnover is so high. But I do think that this is a education that has to happen between whoever the sales leader is and the CEO, because they have to understand like, we don't have a lot of data. We don't have historical data. You come from an established company. You come from something that worked. We are establishing our data. We think we know who the ICP is. We think we know what their problems, their pains, how they receive information, but we don't know.

Harry Sims (: 20:33

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 20:45

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 20:45

So as a new leader, it is your job to advocate for yourself and to allow yourself to have the rope that you need to actually get to that point of, as you said, that efficiency so you can start walking and then running because every CEO wants you to run. They too run. And you're like, but hold on.

Harry Sims (: 21:01

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 21:05

Yeah, I think you can run fast to find efficiency in plays and processes. You can iterate, but it's actually the process of finding one that's consistent and works for a long time, over and over and over again. That's not a fast thing. You just actually reminded me, the answer should have been when you asked me that original question about run, is when do we have healthy close rates?

Wesleyne (: 21:32

Hmm

Harry Sims (: 21:33

That's actually the answer, because that's a product market fit thing. And then if you actually, if you're there long enough, which I'm not always, you then look, do we have a healthy churn, right? Because it's very possible that the people you're adding to the funnel from outbound are not good fits, but you don't know until they churn.

But that's not, I don't think that's because of outbound tactics. That's a targeting issue. It could, they would come in the funnel if you targeted them with ads as well. But that's very possible. And I've been there. I've been at a early stage startup. The first 40 customers, about 20 churned. Do you know why they churned? Cause they, the deals were done for favors from, you know, the investor favors, the board intros, and they felt obliged to buy this thing that they didn't really need.

Wesleyne (: 22:27

And you know, the crazy thing about that is it is why typically a new sales leader, a new sales rep, their first six months or so, they're just living off of the love of the last person. They're living off of the favors of somebody. And then the real proof comes to it when you have to actually get out there and work, when you actually have to find the new people, when all of those deals, those leftover deals.

Kind of like you're saying, like that your turn rate is like, oh my gosh, my pop line is so soft. And it's because you haven't actually learned how to do anything, but just pull people through.

Harry Sims (: 23:04

Do you know why I'm laughing so much? Because that's why I say I'm a Bang Ava J.E. I made President's Club in Tahiti from basically a blow-in deal that a rep, actually it was kind of two blow-in deals, significant, one of them was seven figures. And I did no work for it. And as soon as those deals were done, I was in the hole. I couldn't, it was a big enterprise sales motion. I was like 24, 25.

Wesleyne (: 23:21

Mmm.

Harry Sims (: 23:34

And I was woefully Woefully out of my depth I even put on my LinkedIn. I say this was the this is a lucky presence club, by the way yeah, so there you go, it happens trust me and

Wesleyne (: 23:49

It does. I mean, and you know, that kind of goes to the talk about in terms of reps, actually knowing how to sell versus just nurturing accounts and just being in the right place at the right time. Because the thing is, is a true salesperson, I say this all the time, a real salesperson, whether they've been in their role for five months or five years, if you take them and put them in a completely different territory, a completely different company,

The ones that are actually good will survive because they have the skills. The ones that aren't good, that have been just living on this love, they're gonna flounder.

Harry Sims (: 24:21

Yes.

Harry Sims (: 24:26

Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And I think I think it was a bit it was I actually did well at the next company, but it was because I was so I was so like, unaware that time, I just decided to sell something completely different than everyone else was selling and it worked out. And that that's that was the role that I got. After the first year of actually selling things, they're like,

we need more new business. And I was like, okay, that was my chance to go and be in the SDR world. And it was always what I was good at. I was never good at. I was good at opening, running the first meeting and then so bad at all the actual stuff that AEs get paid for. The dark hearts that don't feel like dark hearts. I was terrible at it. So bad. I think I probably still am.

Wesleyne (: 25:19

So you defer on the side of being the door opener rather than being the closer.

Harry Sims (: 25:24

Yeah. Yes. I'm that's my I'm always going to be that. And I actually don't want to be a VP. I don't want to be a maybe be a CEO, but maybe being product but I don't all I want to be is frontline, frontline leader frontline operator. I see. That's what I love. I get up at 5am. And I'm it's one of my favorite things in the world. Everyone else is asleep. I'm prospecting. And

I am addicted to it. I'm absolutely obsessed with it. And it's really weird because everyone else uses it as a stepping stone or they avoid it, but I couldn't be happier doing it. It's so weird.

Wesleyne (: 26:07

And you know, I really think that as people, as humans, it's important for us to know that, right? Like I was literally just talking to a new client I'm onboarding, we were talking about their team and he was like, yep, these two salespeople, they're really, really good, but I don't see that they ever want to go into management. They just really want to stay where they are. And I was like, we all need those people. As a business owner,

Harry Sims (: 26:15

Amen.

Harry Sims (: 26:29

Okay.

Wesleyne (: 26:33

I don't need a bunch of people who want to start their own business because I need employees, right? And everybody doesn't have to be a manager. And understanding where your strengths lie is really important. Like, I will tell everybody, I am the visionary. I am not the execution person. If you would have said, Westlyn, can you send me an email and line out all the things that you said that you told me to do? I'd be like, I'm sorry. I don't even remember because I'm the visionary. And I know where my strength lies.

Harry Sims (: 26:52

Mm.

Wesleyne (: 27:03

And the problem that we have in so many companies is people try to be everything. They try to do all the things. And when you are not operating your excellence, just like you mentioned, you don't get fulfilled and you don't do a good job.

Harry Sims (: 27:13

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 27:17

Yeah, I've seen it early stage. It's, it's, it's just the comment. There'll be the very, very capable ops person who gets given seven jobs and they, they accept them because it's part of that, their character. I am the person who gets stuff done on time. I execute and then they, it's not, they struggle. They, they struggle like internally and in their personal life, but work you'll never know. Um,

I bet you can execute though. I bet, I know you have ideas, but I bet you wouldn't be where you were if you couldn't.

Wesleyne (: 27:52

Okay, let's talk about that, right? So when I say that I can't execute, what I mean in terms of execution is I am not operating in my best self if I have to sit down here and actually, cause like we make sales playbooks for people, but if I sit here and actually have to write the playbook, like I can do it, I don't enjoy it, and it takes me forever because I don't like doing it. But I mean, I started a business all by myself. So everything that we do in the business,

Harry Sims (: 28:05

Oh yes, yes.

Harry Sims (: 28:10

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 28:21

Yeah, yeah. Your operations are clean as well. This whole booking this, or the different setup, I know you can do it. I knew I heard that wrong.

Wesleyne (: 28:22

I don't know how to do it. I just don't enjoy it, right?

Wesleyne (: 28:36

You're like, let me clarify that. I need to make sure that she's not throwing herself under the bus.

Harry Sims (: 28:37

Yeah, I was like...

Hey, if you want to have an argument over playbooks, we can. I'll get, I'll go, I'm pretty, pretty opinionated on this. But I will say to you on the playbook, it doesn't, like you writing the playbook for them, I don't think teaches them much. Because unless it's your own work, and you have autonomy around it.

Wesleyne (: 28:57

Mmm.

Harry Sims (: 29:07

You don't really have that sense of ownership. And if you miss that sense of ownership, I think there's too much of a gap between, it's my responsibility to improve this. Because you know this, you know all the big sales vendors, the big force management and all these, right? They'll spend 18 months rolling something out, then the serial go and then it's done. They don't even remember it.

One or two of the you know, and I can't speak for everything. I hear this a lot And maybe a new leader comes in with a new playbook and like it's like it's too slow Um That's my two cents. However You got to remember my perspective my walled garden is just really early stage companies that we're figuring out So I think it's completely different in lots of other environments and you've probably seen it

Wesleyne (: 29:46

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 30:02

Yeah, so you know, in the industries that I work in, they are, and there's a gamut, you know, the organizations that we're typically working on, they're onboarding and they're playbook and all those things. I call them, they're really companies that the founder still has a hand in sales. And so the founder is either onboarding or hiring that first sales manager. And they're like, I hired some salespeople before, I hired some sales managers before, and it didn't really work out.

Harry Sims (: 30:18

Okay.

Wesleyne (: 30:30

And I'm like, because the process is in your brain. So I am a process person. This is my chemist brain. And so literally we're not writing the playbooks for them. I'm sitting down and interviewing Harry. And I'm like, okay, Harry, so tell me when this happens, what do you do? Then what do you do? How do you handle this objection? How do you tell this person that? And so what it does is it removes all of the knowledge from the founder's brain. Sometimes it's a sales leader.

Harry Sims (: 30:33

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Harry Sims (: 30:52

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 30:57

from their brain and we actually can map it out and it helps them onboard their new salespeople faster because it's not in their brain.

Harry Sims (: 31:03

Ah, yes. Yeah, so I think.

Harry Sims (: 31:10

Yeah.

Yeah, maybe you just changed my mind. Maybe.

Wesleyne (: 31:20

What are you noodling on? What are you noodling?

Harry Sims (: 31:22

Well, it's because it's first party data. You're interviewing the people that have the best perspective at that moment, probably. And then maybe there's a new product for you. That should be refreshed every month or quarter, because things change. Ah, there you go.

Wesleyne (: 31:39

It is. So it's a living document, right? So we create it and then we know it has to be updated. And then they see it, they're like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Where do you, the question I get is where did all this come from? I'm like, this is from your head. So like, this is from your brain. So when I say I'm the visionary, not the execution person, I will have a 60 minute interview with someone.

Harry Sims (: 31:43

WHAAAAAT?

Harry Sims (: 31:54

Yes.

Wesleyne (: 32:03

and I'm extracting all the bits and pieces and my operations person listens to that and she's putting all it together and mapping it out and doing all the things. And so again, as things change, they're like, we don't like that ICP anymore. Nope, this didn't work. We're getting all these new objections. Hey, we gotta update this. So it's a living document and it's not stale. And the key for this is it really helps in onboarding because that's where a lot of companies lack. They have all of the product knowledge, all of those things.

Harry Sims (: 32:16

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 32:32

but they don't really have like, this is how it works from a sales process. This is how it works from that standpoint. So that's our secret little sauce in there.

Harry Sims (: 32:36

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 32:41

Ah, see, there you go. Hey, maybe we just change the name because a book suggests there's a beginning, middle and end.

Wesleyne (: 32:48

Okay. All right. What are we gonna call this Harry? Come on. Sales playlist. I like it.

Harry Sims (: 32:50

Playlist, the playlist.

Harry Sims (: 32:55

Yeah, and then you're also that kind of suggests autonomy because you get to pick the tunes That you like based on what's happening in front of you. There you go I'll take i'm gonna take that one though. So that's mine Yeah, you can have it for all the help

Wesleyne (: 33:09

That's good. The sales playlist. Okay, okay, you can have it. You can share it. Look, we can share it. There is enough, I love saying there is enough cake for everybody to have a slice. There's enough cake. Okay, Harry, so I want you to share with us a situation in your life, personally or professionally, that has impacted the way that you show up in the world today.

Harry Sims (: 33:20

Oh, yeah.

Harry Sims (: 33:34

Cool.

Big one. Having a daughter is a massive one. I think I don't know how deep I want to get here. Men are men like me. I don't say all men. We're basically teenagers up until, for me anyway, until I had my daughter. Actually, probably to about six months into having my daughter. I was effectively a teenager who was older.

Having my daughter gives me a different everything, different perspective on women, different perspective on myself, how I like my physical self, my work. It helps me be much calmer because literally none of this matters. If I can focus on trying to be good for her, then everything else will fall into place. And...

from London, I moved to LA in: 2017

And we're also like when we joke with you and when we like, you know, I'm laughing and joking a bit, that means I like you. It doesn't mean that I disrespect you or, and just that culture shock. And I've felt it many, many times over the last few years and I still do, but that was another big impact. Like we're not, I think it's much, it's important to like read the room and I still don't do it very well. But so those two things are big things, massive things.

Wesleyne (: 35:38

I love that, I love that. It's amazing how children can change our perspective on life, the way that we view things, the way that we think about things. And also, you know, moving. I've traveled a good little bit across the world and what I know is different places, even in the US, different things are acceptable and some things are not, right? And then, you know, when you're in Norway or you're in London versus being in Houston, Texas,

Harry Sims (: 35:53

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 35:59

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 36:06

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 36:07

to adapt to what those cultural norms are. And so I can just imagine like moving across the world how much that has impacted you.

Harry Sims (: 36:14

Yeah.

But I think it's also like, I find it fascinating, like different, like microcultures and different places, like that's the joy, one of the joys of my life. Like I seek it. And London, it's built into where you're from. And also you're just, you're around people from everywhere and you become fascinated by it. So yeah, that's a good one. Which was your favorite country you've been to so far?

Wesleyne (: 36:48

Oh, well, you know, favorite kind of depends on what kind of favorite we're talking about.

Harry Sims (: 36:53

Okay.

Wesleyne (: 36:55

say Bermuda because that pink sand and that blue water, I absolutely love it. I love Bermuda the most. Just in terms of countries that I visited, I think I actually do like London because I really enjoy the diversity.

Harry Sims (: 36:56

Oh yeah.

Harry Sims (: 37:04

Yeah, yeah. Fair play.

Harry Sims (: 37:16

Mm-hmm.

Wesleyne (: 37:16

And so anytime I can go somewhere and I can see people, because Houston, that's where I live, it's like a melting pot. Like there's everybody from all over the world here. And so in London, I felt the same way, right? I felt like it was so diverse and there were so, and people are welcoming and warm, even though you say they're direct, it's some places you go to and they just stare at you, like, who are you? What are you doing here? You know what I mean? But I didn't get that. Like in Germany?

Harry Sims (: 37:23

Yeah.

Harry Sims (: 37:40

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 37:44

Yeah, they just stare at me because they're not used to seeing black people, I guess. So, you know, it's, and it's always like, what are you doing here? Whereas in London, I didn't get that feeling.

Harry Sims (: 37:47

Yeah, that's the way.

Harry Sims (: 37:53

No, no. Yeah, I get that. I hear that from everyone. I speak to about London. I'm actually quite proud of it, to be honest. I didn't contribute anything to it, but I'm proud that that's how people that go there, like, come away with that feeling. Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 38:11

Harry, this has been an amazing conversation. Tell us, how can people get in contact with you?

Harry Sims (: 38:17

Just linked in Harry sins. I have a website pers I barely update it. So probably don't bother going on there and if anyone's listening, I Really recommend you have a call with this lovely lady because she will she will tweak your journey I bet and it'll have a big impact and Thank you again

Wesleyne (: 38:39

Thank you so much. Thank you. That has been another episode of the Transform Sales Podcast. And remember, in all that you do, transform your sales. Until next time.