Get FREE Sales Leadership Resources at go.transformedsales.com/pod

Highlights

• [00:48] - Becoming a sales team-building and problem-solving guru.
• [05:25] - Transferring his skills from the education sector into sales.
• [12:57] - Taking up a sales manager role and killing it where many had failed.
• [14:58] - How to ensure your sales team (Including the remote team) performs as expected.
• [20:26] - Strategies for establishing core values that will keep your sales team winning.
• [27:28] - Why being vulnerable as a sales leader is so powerful.
• [31:51] - The great potential of a sales team that takes ownership of their business.
• [36:40] - Being passionate about making the world a better place.

In this episode of the Transformed Sales Podcast, I interviewed Michael Peveler, the Vice President of Sales at AtlasIED, a company that manufactures next-generation communication systems and commercial audio/video products that protect, inform, and entertain within the education, transportation, hospitality, industrial, security, and corporate markets.

Michael is a senior executive with a proven track record of planning and executing business objectives. He has a strong business management background with expertise in training, development, strategic planning, and market development. He’s a problem-solving team leader and he loves what he does. 

Michael will share his wealth of knowledge in sales with us and talk about his many years in sales leadership after transitioning from education. He will also teach us what it takes to build a strong sales team that will stand the test of time and keep your business growing in the long term. Stay tuned!

Quotes

“To be a salesperson, you gotta be willing to learn, teach others, help your co-workers, and share experiences. All of that is a critical part of going and being successful in what salespeople do on a daily basis” - Michael Peveler

“It’s really important as a sales leader to be transparent” - Michael Peveler

“You lead with culture first and foremost” - Michael Peveler

“As a sales leader, your job is to remove obstacles for your team” - Michael Peveler

Learn More About Michael Peveler in the Links Below:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/peveler/
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/PevelerMichael

Connect with Wesleyne Greer:

• Wesleyne’s Website - https://transformedsales.com/
• Wesleyne on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wesleynegreer/
• Wesleyne on Facebook - https://web.facebook.com/wesleynegreer
• Wesleyne on Twitter - https://twitter.com/wesleynegreer
• Email Her at wesleyne@transformedsales.com

Thank you for joining another episode of the

transform sales podcast. I am so excited today I get to interview

a fellow Texan. I interview people all over the world and

very seldom do I get to interview people right here in

Texas. And so today I have Michael P. Fleur. How are you,

Michael? I'm fantastic. Thank you. Thanks for giving me the

opportunity to be here. Let me tell you guys a little bit about

Michael. He's a senior executive with a proven track record of

planning and execution of business objectives. He has

strong business management background with an expertise in

training, development, strategic planning and market development.

He is a problem solving team leader and he loves what he

does. So Michael, how did you start your career? And how did

you become this amazing person that actually says I like team

building and problem solving? In my bio? Yeah, well, it sounds

like it was written by somebody that liked me. So let's just

start there. So my background is education. I was actual, I

started as a music education major in college and went to

school at Texas Tech up in Lubbock. And then my first gig

was teaching down in Houston, I was a junior high in high school

band director down in the Fort Bend area and taught for eight

years there and a couple of other spots in Texas. And for

those who are from Texas know that everyone outside of Texas

knows that football is a big deal. Friday night football,

right Friday Night Lights. Well, if you also know that that's

big, you know that Friday Night Music is big, too. So the band

programs were huge, big deal. So I taught for eight years made

the decision to get out, see if I could do something out else

wanted to kind of test myself I grew up pretty poor. So I

started working when I was about 15. So I took every job I've

ever had and checked off everything I liked about what I

did and didn't do in my life, you know, putting myself through

college and all those things and came up with a set of skills

that I said, Man, how do I get paid to go do that. And that led

me to corporate training and development. So I am in every

way a teacher, that is who I am. And so I came to a company as a

corporate trainer, we were doing soft skill, business

development, late 90s, early 2000s, when companies were

growing so fast, we were fighting to keep people you

know, on board and recruit and building the next level of

talent. So I was doing a lot of that stuff really got my

business acumen sharp getting a chance to do that. And then my

boss, who is a mentor of mine came to me and said, Listen,

I've got this opportunity to run this program. And it's a

basically, it's a business development program, partnership

program. But the last three people that have had the job

didn't make it to 90 days. And you run training as well as

anybody I've ever had. So you can just stay and keep running

training, or you can do this. And I said, Well, that sounds

exciting, Mike, but who's gonna run training? I care a lot about

it. He said, obviously, this is the cool part, you get to do

both.

Okay. And so what if I hate it? Can I go back to just running

training? And he said, No, that's not how this works. If

you want to play, you got to put skin in the game. And I said,

let's go. And so I did. And that really got me into it. So I

started traveling 20 countries a year working with other

manufacturers building programs. And then eventually it led to

hand eyes in the Drake hotel in Chicago, going out to see

customers. And he looked at me and said, Look, you've done

everything I've ever asked you to do. But you never carried a

bag, never been a salesperson. And I know you've got the work

ethic to do it. So I'm not going to let you just go be a

salesperson, I'm going to make you build teams, we're going to

build a new focus, vertical focus in the company. And you're

going to go build the teams to go build it. So you got to build

the business case, you got to go give us the justification, the

return on investment, find our product and how it fits in for

that it was education. So we had a K 12 team, which was a very

different model. And then we had a higher education, but very

different models, different product offerings, different

solutions. And it just kind of grew from there and kept going.

And I was there for 17 years. And then we got acquired by a

company that was really slow compared to what we were like

big giant came in. And after about two years of sitting

around waiting to go do something. I left and went to a

little bitty company. And we started really growing that and

it was exciting and fun. And then we got bought by a much

bigger company. And it was really slow again. And so a year

in I was calling them going man I'm working 30 hours a week.

This is the most boring job I've ever had, like, make it our

number were your top Forecasting team in the company. But we're

dying here. And at that point, I just decided to leave and go

find another opportunity and I came down let's ID family owned

business. Been around for a three years plus second

generation Oh worship at this point, looking to kind of

reinvent the brand and really reinvigorate the team with the

the younger generation now running the company and got to

join some amazing people. And I've been there for it'll be

four years in October. So fantastic. I love what I do.

I've got a great sales organization and a great team of

people. And yeah, wow. So you have so many things that we were

gonna unpack. The first one is, there are a lot of people who

are actually in education right now. And they're like, I don't

know, if I want to continue doing this, maybe I want to be

in sales, maybe I want to do this. And what you said is, hey,

I took something that I knew how to do really well. And I use

those skills and translated them to a different industry. It's

the same thing that I did when I went from being a chemist on the

bench. And I started selling to those people, because I

understood that world, right? I really understood and I got what

they needed. So tell me about how you were able to transfer

your skills from doing one thing within the education realm and

to really getting into the training environment.

Yeah, sure. So really simple. I get talked to my teachers all

the time, who know that I made the jump. And they want to know,

and it's sad state of our country in our world right now

that people want out of education like they do. And I'm

at a point in time, my age, where all of my friends that I

was teaching with, they're all retiring, now they're hitting

it, as soon as they get their number they're getting now they

just don't want to put up with anymore. And it's a sad state of

affairs of where we are. But I tell every single one of them

the exact same thing. Most people in the real world have

not worked a day as hard as you have as a teacher. People have

no idea the amount of effort and time and compassion and patience

and multitasking it takes to manage a classroom period after

period and to manage administrators and to manage

parents, and to manage all the other forces that go into it.

And so I always tell people look, find what you love to do.

Find what, what it is that when you do the clock goes really

fast, right? Not the thing that every time you look at the

clock, it's like, Ah, man, it's only been three minutes. Like,

you know, when I'm in the gym, right? It's like, Hey, man, I've

only been doing this for three minutes. I thought I've been

doing this for like an hour, right? Yeah. It's like it, the

bias has taken so long. Find the thing that you love to do, and

then figure out how to get paid to go do it. And don't worry

about your skill set. Because your work ethic and your ability

to learn because teachers are learners, fundamentally, you

know, your ability to do that will take you far, good

communication skills are critical as a teacher critical

in business, right? Understanding what it is you're

talking about. Right? Being prepared? Yeah, that's what we

do every day, right? Do we know what we're talking about? Are we

prepared to handle it? Are we prepared to practice it? Are we

prepared to go out and talk to somebody? Rejection is one thing

from a sales standpoint that teachers aren't used to in the

same way. So that is a little bit of a jump. But everything

else? I remember when my boss came to me and said, I got a

team not performing well, can you go in and fix it. And as I

was going through the process of trying to understand the

staffing and the focus, and how they're using their time, and

all that stuff, I was like, I'm just doing a gap analysis, this

is the same thing I did as a teacher, right? Here's where you

are, here's where you're trying to go. Here's the plan of how

you're gonna get there. Same exact thing. So yeah, I tell

teachers all the time, you guys will kill it in the corporate

world. And you'll work much harder. And you'll look around

at everybody and go, Why does everybody need this much time to

get this done? I got it done in half the time. I love it. I love

it. And you know, one thing that most people don't realize is

every single thing that is in the environment that you're

working in is sold by a salesperson, those textbooks

that you're using the overhead projector, or the whiteboards,

and smartboards all of those things are sold by a

salesperson. And so the easiest step into sales from any career,

whether it's education, or engineering, or your nurse, like

look around you and look at all of the different product names,

and go to those companies and apply for those jobs. Right?

Like reach out to those hiring managers on LinkedIn and say,

Hey, XYZ I've used your product for 10 years. It is amazing. And

I am looking for a career change. I would love to come

sell for you be a corporate trainer be in supply chain,

whatever it is, like you said that thing that makes you so

excited and really stepping your toes into sales. That is one of

the things people don't do. They're like applying for all of

these giant companies out here who they don't know anything

about and they don't know them. Start with what you know. So

yeah, no, that's it and look, one of the reasons that I have

headed up so much effort into education is because I came from

In the space, and you know, I had people I worked with, and

then I get up in front of a group of teachers and start

talking to them, and they would look at me like, Who are you

like, you're a teacher, holy cow, you've been hiding the

whole time. And I was like, these are my people, right? I

mean, these are the folks that look, to be fair, it's one of

the skills that I think is necessary to be a salesperson,

you've got to be willing to learn, and you got to be willing

to teach, you got to be willing to teach each other, teach your

team, help your coworker, help your person share experiences,

right. All of that is, is a critical part of going and being

successful in what we do on a daily basis. So it's really,

again, transferable skills.

Absolutely. I always say we serve, we don't sell. And one of

the things that keeps saying one of the things, one of the many

things that I talk about all the time is teach them and they will

come right. So whether you're a leader, or you're an individual

contributor, your job is to impart your knowledge, the

things that you know, on your customers on your sales team.

And if you already have that background, it's so much easier

to do it. Right. Absolutely. So you took the skills that you had

in education, and you translated them into the corporate arena.

And I really enjoyed when you talk about a box that you had

and said, yeah, no. So pretty much you don't have the option

to fail. It's just going up. What was some of the emotions

that were going through your brain at that point? I was

excited at the opportunity. I'm not a person that sits around

well, I you know, he and I read event and event years later, and

someone said, So Michael, what is it you do? And he stepped in

and said, let me answer this question, if you don't mind. And

I was like, oh, no, what's he gonna say? Right? And he said,

Michael is my FIX IT guy, he builds things that don't exist,

and he fixes things that are broken. And that's, that's a

good definition of who I am, right? I don't have long term

patience. I have a lot of patience in the moment. But I

get bored doing the same thing forever and ever and ever. I

like building stuff. I like evolving and growing, if we're

just gonna do the same thing every day. It's I'm not that

person. There's other people that are great at that. Right,

that are those great Sustainer type personalities for for me,

it's building. So when there was an opportunity presented, yeah,

there's a risk, but there's always a risk. And so I jumped

at it. Because why wouldn't you write I trusted him. He didn't

give me any reason not to. And look, I spent that whole holiday

It was right before Christmas. And I remember I spent two weeks

on my computer during my Christmas break, trying to learn

about all these customers I was going to be working with. So for

me, it was exciting. It was it's what I do. Once I get the

opportunity, I dive in both feet. And I go right, the more

knowledge and more understanding I have. And the more I speak the

language right and more I understand their terminology,

their words, the more comfortable I'm going to be when

I get in front of them. You mentioned that the position that

you took over the last three people had only lasted 90 days.

How were you able to take a position that in literally 12

months, there were four different managers? How did you

take that and really start driving change within that

organization within that that group that you were leaving? You

know, look, I just tried to consolidate as much information,

you know, our company had gone through a lot of transformation.

And there was a point in time and some of the chaos of

leadership change, where people were able to hide, we all know

it, you know, we all see when organizations go through

turmoil. There's people that aren't doing anything any you

know, during the day, and they're still getting their

paycheck. And that's what had happened. It wasn't you know,

there were just people have gotten away with not doing

anything. So for me, it was learning as much as I could

gathering as much information as they had put together and then

coming up with the direction of what made sense of where we were

trying to go and then laying out a clear pathway. Again, you

can't follow a road if you don't know where it is you're supposed

to go. And sometimes you only have visibility to the next two

weeks. Sometimes you got visibility for the next two

years. But visibility is visibility. Right? You know, my

family and I we like to backpack and hike and there's times we

were talking about last night at dinner, we went hiking where we

were in a cloud where we were hiking. So our visibility, felt

a little bit like an ad slasher movie, right and kept watering,

who was going to come out from around the tree, but you only

have visibility of 1020 yards, because it was a heavy cloud.

But that's where you hiked. You just you followed the path and

you you went with what you could see and you went at the pace

that you can move comfortably and still see and be

comfortable. And in business. I think it's the same way. So I

laid out a path and we started going and as we learn more and

got feedback and all those things that come in and help

drive your direction we added to the plan and the path. That's so

good. You talked about people hiring, right? Like, that's what

so many people do, especially if you have a remote sales team,

they can do just enough to get by. And as long as they're not

ruffling feathers, and they're kind of close to their quota,

then managers leave them alone. But I am very outside of the

box, like, ya know, if

you're always just close or right at it, that means you're

not really pushing yourself, you're just in your comfort

zone. So I want to kind of push you a little bit further. And

sometimes that push, like you said, may push them out. But

they need to understand this is the new culture. And this is

what the we're gonna be doing. What did you do for those

hiders? Those lurkers? How did you really impact upon the

organization like, this is our vision for the future, this is

what we're going to be doing?

Well, so let me fast forward to the current company that I'm in,

right. And I'm comfortable talking about it. I won't name

any names. But you know, when I came to the company, I had seen

historically a higher turnover rate. I'd seen you know, you see

it, we all do people that always you know, I've got a job at this

company. And then three months later, they're somewhere else.

And I'd seen this company, I'd seen Atlas IDEs name in that

worship, people were moving from one place to you know, and

coming out was for a few months and then going. So when I came

here, my first thought process was, I've got to listen, I've

got to listen. And the first thing I need to do is learn

what's working, not what's not. And so because what's in motion,

and has positive momentum, we can use that right. And then

we'll work on the other stuff that we have to so I started off

my first week, with every one of my reports, I had two phone

calls, right? One was like a 30 minute, hey, this is who I am I

have I have a family, I have kids, this is what I've done in

my career. Tell me about yourself, right? Build some

personal rapport. And then I had a call that was it's about an

hour and a half to two hour call, but I 10 questions. And I

told them, I said, Look, I've got my Microsoft notes here, all

I'm going to do is write what you say. And I'm gonna ask 10

questions. And if you really want me to come in and help you

fix, and grow this company, and you want to be part of it, this

is your opportunity to be as honest as you're willing to be

this your chance, right? And I'm going to ask these 10 questions,

and you can say anything you want. I'm not, I won't respond,

unless I asked you to elaborate something or something, it just

goes way too long. I might have to cut it short. Right. So my

first question was, what is the company do? Well, And my second

question was, what is the company not do? Well, well, I

had one person that they weren't like, 45 minutes on this, right.

And you're getting a lot of good information, you're also

learning a lot about your person. And so through the

process, I was able to gather a lot of stuff and find

commonalities, and then being transparent, because I think

it's really important. As a leader, I came back to all of

them and said, Look, here's the compiled results of what you all

told me. And these are things that I think are easy to fix.

And we can go work on that together. Does everybody agree

that that would be valuable that that would be beneficial, if we

worked on this stuff, and got this stuff fixed, and they all

went, Yeah, that'd be great. Immediately, I got their buy in

on it, I gave him a chance to, you know, for me to come in and

start solving their problems, and it pulled anybody that was

hiding out. So you pull those people into the process, and

then they're all accountable for helping, I didn't say I haven't

gotta go solve it, I said, we're gonna, we can go solve this

stuff together, and we can get rid of this, I may be the point

of the spear, right, I may be the one that asked to go have

the conversations with the CEO, or, you know, whatever, that's

fine. That's what I signed up for. I don't have the competence

to do that I shouldn't have taken the job. But the next most

important thing to me is the culture. And the culture in the

team is what I can control and impact the culture of the

company. And so by setting up and being very clear about what

we were going to work on, as I started solving their problems,

I started being able to insert my solutions for other things

that weren't named, that were obvious to me, based on my

experience, hey, by the way, we're working on this, but I

want to make sure we get this too. And they would go Oh, and

that some of them may have thought we never talked about

that one. But nobody ever said that. And the end result was we

started removing obstacles, people started feeling better

about it. And then it became, I gotta verify that you're really

pulling your own weight, right? And you could see who was doing

it or not, you could see who was prepared. Who could talk about

what their pipeline look like, who could talk about projects

who can name names, right? I've told them all if I ask you about

a project and you start with them, that's a bad sign. Right?

Ah, bad sign, stalling for an answer. Not a good sign. Like

you got to know what's in your pipeline. You got to know what's

going on. Right? And if you can't answer those questions and

stay on top of it, and we're not seeing orders come in when you

say they're going to come in, and we're not seeing activity,

or at least understanding why. And obviously, gosh, the last

couple of years, we've been through a couple of major

events, global supply chain challenge COVID, all that stuff.

So certainly, they're just a couple of little things. And

that's obviously slowed down and given us reasons for why things

haven't come in. But you just have to be reasonable through

that process. And through that, you can establish your core

values, what really matters, right? For me, it really matters

that as a team, we compete with each other. But we focus on the

competitors outside the building, the other people that

we sell against, right. So it's great to have salespeople that

want to push each other. But I also want them to be each

other's biggest supporters. Right? When somebody else gets a

big order, I don't want them to be like, I want them to be like,

Great job, that's good for the company, right? But I also want

you to be pushing to be the one that got that big order, so that

everybody's calling you going, Hey, congratulations, right. And

so we spend a lot of time celebrating our wins as a group,

so that everybody gets to hear those kudos, Pat's on the back

all those kinds of things. And the great thing is, everyone's

gotten to be the hero at some point in time in the last few

years by getting that big order in and saving the month or

saving the quarter or whatever, and everyone's going to go, or

it didn't work out and you're like, I'm doing everything

right. You're like, just stay patient, stay focused. And you

know, when they're calling the other salespeople frustrated,

they're hearing the same message. Because we built that

culture.

Wow, that right there, everyone listening that is a complete

masterclass on how you step into an organization get buy in very

quickly and start executing on the things that needs to happen.

Because the roadmap or the recipe that I heard is, hey, I'm

just Michael, I'm just introducing myself. Now I want

to understand from you what's good, what's not so good. So we

can work together to solve them. And you don't just listen to the

words they're saying, you listen to how they're saying it, you

listen to their body language, you listen to their demeanor,

how long are they complaining? How long are they giving

solutions? Are they making excuses like so as a leader,

having that kind of conversation with your salesperson, whether

you've been in the position, two months, two years, 20 years, if

you don't have this information, you really should understand it,

don't just use your preconceived notions of what you think this

person is like, or what you think they may do, really use

their words. And then you take that and you say, we're a team,

we win as a team, we lose as a team, this is what we're going

to do, we're going to work on one to three things. And then

you help them all celebrate their wins. And when somebody

needs to be uplifted, they have the collective team around them,

because at some point, everyone has been in that seat. So really

building that strong organization based on the

culture, the way everybody collaborates with each other.

That's what drives sales. I mean, so many sales leaders are

out here beating people with the CRM and KPIs and all this and

that, and yes, it does have a place. But that's not what we

lead with. We lead with you're a human being. And this is the

behavior that drives sales. And so that is what we need to do to

push the needle forward. Yeah, I couldn't say it better you lead

with culture, right? We use the tools CRM, and KPIs are tools

that help with the direction of where the trials gonna go. But

we lead with culture, first and foremost, right? So I have, if

you don't mind, I'll keep this one short. But I have the same

conversation with every person that works for me, right? And I

tell them, it's the first conversation we have after they

start, obviously, we go through all the interview process, but

it's the first conversation and through the interview process,

I'm really looking for culture, right? Can I talk to this

person, my going to be able to call them and tell them that

there's a problem? And they're going to be able to handle that,

right? Because I've got to be able to deal with a world of

conflict, right? We're salespeople, that's what we deal

with all the time. And there's going to be times I need to be

able to call someone and say, Hey, I don't think we had the

right game plan here, the right approach. And there's going to

be other times where I'm going to be like, you know, you need

to be able to call me and say, Hey, I didn't get the support

from this other team area, or I, you know, I felt like you let me

down or whatever, that's okay, that we have to have those

conversations. So I'm listening for that. I'm asking questions

about that through the interview process, because I need to know

that you're going to come in and fit the culture we built. But

the conversation is really simple. I hate surprises, even

on my birthday. So don't let me get surprised. That's rule

number one, right? There's a problem you call me about it.

Rule number two is good news is great. But bad news comes first.

Right? Again, as a sales leader, my job is to remove obstacles

for you. I can use my title, I can use my relationships. I can

use my pool with the other senior managers in the team or

in the company to potentially help get you out of a problem.

But I can't do it if I don't know about it. Right. Now, if I

find out about a problem from somebody else in the team,

that's like two strikes. Right? You got it. You call me first. I

don't care day or night you call me first because again, I can't

help you. If I don't know there's a problem, right? It's a

servant attitude. Right? The third thing is we do what's

right, because it's the right thing to do not because it makes

people happy. So as I tell them all you learned everything you

need to know in kindergarten, right? We don't lie. We don't

cheat, don't steal, we hold hands when we cross the street.

We don't do anything that even smells like we were being

unethical in the way we go. When. Right? And I always tell

them, this is your official warning on that. Right?

Everything else, you will get a chance. This one, this is your

official warning. Right? You won't get a chance. If I find

out you lied, cheated, still misled any of that stuff. Our

next conversation will be I wish you the best of luck. And then

the fourth thing is, you're absolutely welcome to disagree

with me. There's nothing wrong with that I have my own opinions

based on the information that I have. But if you think I'm just

off my rocker, don't call and tell all the other salespeople

call me.

Right? In the old day, come into my office, right? Come talk to

me Shut the door. And let's have an honest adult to adult

conversation. And I will drop my expectations and just listen

without judgment to what you have to say. And if you

absolutely can bring a compelling reason, or compelling

point that I didn't consider or information I didn't, that

helped me adjust my direction. I'm glad to do that, right. But

at the end of the day, I get paid to make decisions as a

sales leader. So at the end of the conversation, I'm going to

make a decision, I'm not going to spend days thinking about it,

I'm going to make a call. And at that point, we're all on the

same page. Right? So we're not going back and complaining that

you didn't agree with me? No, I'll explain to you why I'll

open the books, I'll show you the stuff that maybe you don't

need to know as a salesperson. But in this case, I'm going to

tell you, I'll give you a perspective. I don't mind. But

then we're going to focus on getting back to work, right? And

we're just going to realize that that didn't work out the way you

wanted it to. And I've been I've absolutely changed my mind.

Right? When people have come and given me a compelling reason to

understand why my decision maybe wasn't, you know, fully

informed. That's okay. And that's it. If you can follow

those four rules, and you can put your work ethic in every

day, and you can work with the team every day, you probably

have a chance to be successful. And it's amazing to me how many

people can't follow those four rules. Yeah, I just recently

onboard a new employee. And so um, you know, what we, as

leaders have to do, we have to mentor our next generation of

leaders. So I just promoted somebody up to become a manager.

And one of the things that I overheard her telling the new

employee is be honest with Wesleyne. She likes to if you're

not honest with her, that is her Achilles heel, like, I need to

know, like, you need to tell me the consequences. Like don't

worry about that. We can figure it out together. But like you

said, if I find out from somebody else, oh, that's a big

problem, because you didn't come to me. And then I had to be

introspective and say, was there something I did that made you

feel uncomfortable with sharing this with me? Was it my

reaction? Or was this your insecurity? And then once I

worked through that, then we can move forward. But there's

something that I call being a hot leader? Yes. Hot, honest,

open, transparent, right. And that is what we literally, as

strong leaders, we should always have that hot mentality and not

hot, swerving off as soon as something happens, but be

honest, be a person of your word, do what you say you're

going to do. I expect you as a team to do this. And I'm going

to hold myself to the same standard open. Openness is yes,

I've not always been perfect. But this is where I am now. And

this is how we're going to get to the next level and being

transparent. Transparency is Hey, guys, I know you may not

want to do this. However, I just had a board meeting. And if we

don't do xy and z, then I'm going to be on the chopping

block. You guys are still going to be here. But they told me

that my job is on the lie. So I need you to help me save my job

that's being transparent, that's being vulnerable. And for a lot

of leaders, they can't lean into that. They can't get into that

vulnerability to be like, Oh, I'm going to tell them what's

going on behind the scenes. But that's the only way that we grow

as leaders and our teams grow also.

Well, I so love that you have no idea how much we're aligned. So

I use the word vulnerable all the time. I'm a 54 year old guy

and saying vulnerable people sometimes like me, like but I

tell the team so we have we have a sales meeting every week,

right? Like every sales team does line alternates, so one

week it's everybody in the company that impact sells so

product management, customer service, marketing, all those

people and they they've got one hour a week to get everything

into the sales team they need to write because I can't have my

salespeople spending hours orders in meetings that aren't

related to sales, right? You can't hold them accountable for

a number and then go like, but I need you eight hours and other

stuff. And when I came here, that was a problem. So I said,

like, you get one meeting one hour, every two weeks. And guess

what it works fine, everybody's able to get in what they need

to. And if something special like and brand new products

coming out, we're doing training, obviously, that's an

exception, right. But for the most part, it works fine. The

other meeting the other every other week, it's just myself and

my direct reports. And the whole theme of that meeting is be

vulnerable. This is where we get better. This is where you have

to admit I don't do this, well, hey, I've been trying to sell

this, I've been trying to talk to a customer about this. And I

didn't go well or I tried to demo and the product didn't work

like it right? Whatever it is, or I'm struggling with CRM, and

I can't figure out how to make this work. And you know, people

are is on me about I gotta be tracking this stuff. But I can't

Oh, guess what your email and CRM aren't synced. They're not.

That's why and but you got to have those conversations. And

everybody's got to be willing to be the learner. And everyone's

got to be willing to be the teacher in that session. And I

will tell you that my team loves that. In fact, they have, they

have lobbied me to only to do that meeting three times a month

into the other meeting only once a month, instead of every other

week. And it's just because they all professionally get better.

During that time. They learned something. Most weeks they go,

Oh, that's good. And you know what, when you're out there

doing this every day, that's all you're looking for? Hey, give me

one more little tool. One more little nugget. One more thing

that I tried that last week, and it blew up on me and you did it

and it worked? How'd you do it? Huh? Good. You know, the thing

is, there's so many sales leaders out there that have

these sales meetings that just make me pull my hair out. I'm

like, why are you going through the CRM? Why do you have this

put like this, you should do this on your own. And then you

bring up issues. But using your sales meeting what it is meant

to do, which is moving the needle. And if that's moving the

needle on product knowledge, what's happening on customer

service side, what problems they're seeing in the field

issues with customers, all of those things. And then also,

hey, I'm a salesperson, and I'm struggling with this, can

someone help me and you let them I like to call a mastermind

around that you will let them collectively work together as a

group to really overcome those obstacles. And you're right,

because as a leader, it's like, I know how. And I always tell

people, as a leader, as a business owner, I should know

how to do everything in my business or everything that my

team is doing. But I have to know how to do it. Well, like my

podcast, I am so very, very happy to know that all I have to

do is show up and do an amazing interview everything before it's

done by somebody else. And everything and afters done by

somebody else. I do not desire to know how to edit videos. I

just don't, right. I know what good looks like, but I don't

have to do it myself. And as leaders, we have to recognize

that we have to let those strongholds go. We don't have to

do everything. We don't have to touch everything. We don't have

to be everything to everyone. We need to allow our team to do

some of those things. No, it's exactly right. And listen, my

team is much better at selling every day than I am. I'm good.

They're better, right? And the great thing is I tell them use

my title use my stuff to help you, right? Hey, I need to bring

my I'm gonna bring my VP and for this I'm gonna you know, I'm

when next time we go out and do a meeting, I'm gonna I'm gonna

have my VP fly in, right? And people go, oh, this person must

be important. Okay, great. Yeah, when I come off the back row of

American Airlines,

all the way by the bathroom.

You know, but what I can do is bring a bigger

picture perspective and a level of competence in the company and

reinforce the message that my salesperson has brought in and

help them go be successful. Right. And that, again, my job

is to remove obstacles for them. Their job is to sell, right, but

my job is to remove obstacles that keep them from being able

to sell effectively. And if I do that, yes, we review CRM, yes,

we go through opportunities. Yes, we do forecasting, like any

company, we have to do that stuff. But do we do that in

meetings that consume everybody's time, only the

forecast meeting, and we do that once a month, we do that one.

But we have to and especially in the world we live in with supply

chain as a hardware manufacturer, gosh, it's such a

struggle that if we don't give clear sight to our product,

purchasing people and those folks then we won't have

something to sell. So the both sides of the house have to

really connect through this process. And three years ago,

people didn't know what supply chain meant. Now everyone has

the textbook definition of it. So those kinds of things. It's

worth the time and it's actually built confidence in others. So

leaders in the company, because they sit in that meeting, the

forecast meeting, and they listen to the salespeople talk

about the opportunities in the activity of what's going on in

the field. And I tell them all, you guys can ask these guys, any

questions you want, right? These men and women are prepared. And

so they'll go, so what are you hearing from the field about

this? Or what's the customer said? And they can drill the

answer off because they're, they're doing it. And the end

result is that people whose and we all know there's always

senior leaders in the company like how the sales guys are they

really even work in Maine, I just see their expenses. Are

they really doing well, not mine, because mine are sitting

in that meeting going, they know what they're talking about.

They're out there hustling, they've got activity, they're

closing deals, they told us they were going to close. So their

confidence level in the team is high. And if you come into this

team now and you don't meet that expectation, it becomes really

clear really quickly. Oh, Michael, Michael, Michael, we

can talk forever and ever and ever, because you're talking

about your salespeople taking ownership of their business,

like actually thinking about it like this is their own small

business, and I put into it what I get out, I need help. Because

I can't actually go into the warehouse and make these parts

myself, right. I can't make sure the order is set to the all the

right facilities, and so that every sales person needs to

think about their book of business, their territory, as

their own small business. Because you input output, the

more you do to understand your customers, your territory, the

needs of what they need, you can translate that back into the

organization. And that means they can better serve your

customers, right? It's a full cycle loop. Absolutely. So as we

like I said, we could probably talk for like 90 minutes,

because we're so well aligned. But as we wrap up, I always like

to ask you this final question, what is one thing, just one

thing within your personal or professional life, you are most

excited about having accomplished? Ah, gosh, so

everybody's got their own personal philosophy of why we're

here. And mine is that we're here to try to make the world a

better place. And we've got four children to biological to

adopted. The oldest two I made do charity when they were

growing up, because I don't think fundamentally were

charitable. They fundamentally were kind of selfish. So I made

them donate their money or their time, to things that they cared

about, right didn't matter. Right when my agenda was theirs,

but they had to do it. But then when we were faced with the

opportunity, we stepped up and did it and brought two kids and

out of foster care. And our fine line crazy. It's not always

easy. There are two teenage boys now, some days good, some days

bad, some hours, good, some hours bad. But the fact that I

think we've tried to live by the credo that we try to teach as

well, I think that probably makes us a better person. And I

think that very much contributes to how we approach business as

well. And how I approach business, right? We didn't come

here to destroy, we weren't sent here to destroy each other, we

were put here for whatever you believe, while we're here, we're

to lift each other up. And I think we do that in the way we

manage. And I think I do that. And the way we parent and all of

that.

Wow, you gave me chills. That was That's amazing. I always say

that, you know, my philosophy is the same. I have been so lucky,

so blessed to have this talent, and what my calling is to share

my time, my talent, my expertise with those around me, so I can

help uplift others because I didn't get to where I am by

myself. And so I like to pour back into people and the fact

that you have adopted two children after raising two of

your own biological children, that definitely speaks volumes

to the type of person that you are. You're kind it was a family

decision, obviously. And there's been a lot of sacrifice a lot of

work and we have great kids, we our life is much better because

we they have we have them in our lives. So it sounds like we're

superheroes, we're not we get a lot we get a lot more than we

give. And now they'll just you know, finish high school and

move out or be great. Spoken like a true leader, minimizing

your contribution and really talking about this wasn't just

me, it was a team effort. It was a family decision, and they're

giving to us as much as we're giving to them. Those are the

words that true leaders lead with lead their life personally

as well as in business. And so I'm so honored. I have enjoyed

our time together so much my Oh, thank you. And if people want to

get in contact with you, what is the one best way? LinkedIn? It's

just Michael PE v e l e r. You can search me there Atlas ID is

the company and And, yeah, just reach out to me, you can contact

me directly through it. Awesome. Well, thanks again for sharing

your wealth of knowledge and all of your many, many years of

being in sales leadership, transitioning from education and

really helping us understand what it takes to build strong

teams from the beginning, not in two months, three months, 10

years, but how do you grab that organization by the horns and

really write it? So thank you so much again, Michael. No, thank

you for the opportunity. I really appreciate it really

enjoy it. And that was another episode of the transformed sales

podcast. Remember in what all you do, it is most important to

serve and not sell. Have a wonderful day until we meet