In Part 2 of our exclusive series with sales coaching expert Gordon Wilson, discover why personal life always affects work performance and how to turn your most difficult employees into your biggest profit drivers. Gordon reveals his unconventional approach to managing "racehorses" - those high-performing, high-maintenance team members who can make or break your business.

What You'll Learn:

• Why separating personal and professional life is impossible (and harmful)
• How to identify when team members need coaching vs. discipline
• The "racehorse employee" phenomenon - managing your most talented but difficult people
• Why "hire old people" isn't about age discrimination - it's about untapped experience
• Gordon's proven method for taking salespeople from $45K to $200K annually
• The difference between managing a team and coaching individuals
• Why most small business owners fail at interviewing and hiring

Key Takeaways:

• Personal issues always show up at work - great coaches address this directly
• Your most profitable employees are often your biggest management challenges
• Individual coaching beats one-size-fits-all management every time
• Building trust and rapport with employees works the same way as with customers
• Results matter more than office politics or "optics"
• Most hiring managers don't know how to properly interview candidates

Powerful Quotes from Gordon:

• "When the pain overrules the money, the pain becomes more important"
• "I manage a team, I coach to the individual"
• "If you're gonna hire a racehorse, that will be one of your biggest nightmares, but one of your most profitable nightmares"
• "You get what you're asking for - that's a mindset that'll kill your business"

The $100K Challenge Story:

Gordon shares his legendary story from the digital print industry where he challenged 45 salespeople to raise their hands if they wanted to make $100,000. The results led to him becoming the #1 regional manager in the country with a 289% closing average.

Guest Bio:

Gordon Wilson is a veteran sales coach with over 30 years of experience transforming underperforming sales teams. He has consistently achieved 100-200% over quota and specializes in individual coaching approaches that address both professional and personal development.

Sponsors:

This episode is brought to you by Wizard Academy (WizardAcademy.org), helping small businesses achieve unprecedented growth.

Free Consultation Offer:

Dennis and Leah offer free 60-minute consultations for small business owners. Contact LeahBumphrey@WizardOfAds.com or DennisCollins@WizardOfAds.com.

Coming Up Next:

Part 3: Gordon reveals what truly motivates him as a coach, his philosophy on books and influences, and his surprising answer about what he'd do if he could start over at age 32.

Previous Episode:

Part 1: Why most small business owners struggle transitioning from technician to business leader and the critical difference between managing and coaching.

Tags:

#HighPerformers #EmployeeManagement #SalesCoaching #TeamLeadership #BusinessGrowth #WorkplaceCoaching #SmallBusiness #SalesManagement #TeamDevelopment #ConnectAndConvert

Welcome back to Connect & Convert.

This is Producer Boomer with part two of Dennis and Leah's

conversation with Gordon Wilson.

If you missed part one, Gordon shared why most small business owners struggle today.

We're diving deeper into Gordon's methodology.

You'll hear about his unique elevator coaching approach, his philosophy on

questions versus statements, and a memorable story about coaching a defiant

19-year-old, transitioning from technician to business owner, and the crucial

difference between managing and coaching.

But it's not just his results, it's his.

Approach to truly understanding each individual on his team.

Let's jump right back into the conversation with Gordon Wilson.

What happens is people come in and they make good money, but at a

certain point when the pain overrules the money, the pain becomes more important.

Mo even your most driven financial people, when the pain to get there.

Becomes overwhelming.

The money no longer becomes important and they move on to the next.

Looking for that place where someone actually gives a crap that they're

there, that actually someone cares about what's going on in their

life, why they have the issues they have, what's holding them back.

Most managers never get into those conversations.

I do.

Interesting.

Yeah.

That is very true.

In fact, that's a taboo area for some people, right?

Yeah.

That we leave that personal stuff at the door when we come to the

office that's personal and this is business and they don't meet.

Gordon says, no, that's not true.

Talk.

Talk about how that works.

because everybody brings their personal to work every day.

there's no way you can you, there's no way you can get around it.

I got, because I got to know my team.

I can tell when somebody walks in the door and go, oh, you and the old

lady get into it again last night.

No, I'm serious, but guess what that does?

If you know that about your people and it's not like I

go personally digging for it.

You have to have a way to let people, just like a customer feel

comfortable to open up to you.

Correct.

Just like a customer, you're building that

trust and that rapport with them.

It's the same way with the people and once they learn that it snaps 'em right back.

'cause they know it's yeah.

Okay.

I know Gordon's gonna get all over my case.

let's get your head screwed on now, or he is gonna pull the calls off me today

and I'll go, you're absolutely correct.

So let's sit down, let's talk about it.

Let's get your head screwed on I've pulled calls off of people, on the way out there,

when they've come off their last call.

'cause they were just in a bad mood.

The customer just got to 'em, irritated them, and I told 'em, UN

until you get your head screwed on I'm not sending you to the next call.

Interesting.

I'm just not.

Interesting.

So how does that come across sometimes to, to people?

Is does it, is it too personal?

Is it, invading their privacy?

how does that work?

I try to equate everything to a sales call as much as coaching.

So it'd be like me telling a customer that, please understand,

I'm just here to help you today.

Okay.

It's the same way with my team.

At the end of the day, look at everybody knows I am, I'm, I dropped the tablet

coming down the mountain with Moses.

Okay?

Everybody knows,

was that you here?

Where'd you park your wheelchair?

If you leave your walker in the closet, all that kind of stuff.

oh my.

I know I get all of it, but at the end of the day, here's the thing,

with that comes, even though a lot of 'em don't want minute, A,

a degree of success, knowing that.

For a company to hire me, there must be something in this person.

Okay.

And I use that to the fact that, look at guys, I don't have to work.

This is a choice.

I like helping people become more successful professionally and

personally as I can and as they will allow me into their life.

You, a customer won't buy from you unless there's some

allowance into each other's life.

it's an exchange.

That comes story about why I understand, hey, I, this just

didn't happen from birth.

It's a process.

And

that's how I do it.

It sometimes, on the younger ones you can get there pretty quick.

some of the older guys that are stuck in their ways, you have to be patient.

You have to look for your timing in the right place to have that conversation.

But, very rarely have I not been able to get there and get some sort

of dialogue and trust going on that I am here to make you be better.

That's, how do, again, what do you look

for as a small business owner?

What traits do you look for to identify that?

That's hard to identify?

lemme tell you something, and I've been an advocate

for a long time of hiring old people.

yay old people.

But, what I mean in that is do, the companies realize how many bored

out of their ever loving mind, they've played 3000 rounds of golf.

Okay.

They've getting, they've.

Yet faced at the bar, the golf, club.

and after a while it's I'm, but they have all this decades and wealth

of knowledge of building stuff or being successful and doing stuff.

Now, not all of 'em are good, but there are those little gems out there that

know what it takes to be successful.

But you still have to see the problem is we have people interviewing

people that don't know what it's like to interview a person.

Whoa.

People interviewing people who don't know how to interview.

Why would they, where would they have picked that up at?

That's a good question.

I guess by Hooker, by Crook.

So they look at the resume, the online video, and if

they like the demeanor and he doesn't look like he just got out of bed,

five days ago and hasn't been back.

Hasn't had a, doesn't.

But his resumes, his resume's pretty tight.

He's got a lot of experience, Yeah.

Let me talk to him.

Yeah, he seems all right.

I'll give him a shot.

A lot of these people are almost professional

interviewers, wouldn't you say, Gordon?

Like they, they know what to say.

Just like building a resume.

You know what to put on there.

You get the interview.

But there's a lot of merit in experience and I, it actually bugs me a little

bit when you, Gordon and you Dennis, give your, give each other a hard time

for being, the get off my lawn types.

Yeah.

Because you're emphasizing the wrong part of it, and it becomes

a joke and it's a meme in itself.

But the reality is you learn, I have learned so much from you, Dennis, and I've

been in the industry for 35 years, But you learn and you are open to learning

and similar to mentoring Gordon, you said there are people that don't want

to be mentored, but when they see the success of the people that are actually

working with you, that are hitting their goals and on their numbers, that's what.

Our small business owners need to remember, you don't shuffle

somebody off because of a tag on their driver's license.

That indicates a date.

It's what do you need?

Who has it, and let's use that.

That's about building.

I have never worked.

In any place I can think of in my multiple careers that really anybody

gave a fat crap about who I was.

It was what I could do.

Yes.

Yeah.

That.

And that is the most important thing

because I'm the strong person.

I am.

I really didn't care.

Just get away from me.

Tell me how much I can make and I'll go do this.

but get to the bottom line.

but yeah, seriously.

But that's me.

How much can I make?

What do you need?

What are your expectations?

And if I can live with it, I commit to it and I have a refuse to lose attitude.

So I used to tell people, if I'm not your best in six months,

put my butt out the door.

and I've used that through my whole career.

But what I'm saying is that you need owners.

Small business owners really need to think about what they want

to bring into their business.

Yes.

You wanna grow?

Yes.

You.

the first thing, the reason they wanna do this is I don't have the coverage.

The phone's ringing off the hook.

I can't get enough te, I don't have enough texts to get out there.

Okay?

I've been closing stuff on my own and most owners give crap away.

that's how they keep their business floating.

So they don't really know a whole lot about the sales process, whatever that may

be, because it was broke and they sold it.

So now they're a hero.

but.

it, you really need to think.

Okay.

And there are those out there.

This isn't a generalization of the entire industry, but what

I personally have witnessed is they're very good at being a tech.

They're 75% good at running a business.

They are terrible at managing employees.

And because people forget who brings you to the dance and who brings

you to the dance are the people.

And I realize that's an old term.

There's no dances anymore, But.

that's an old statement.

I don't know.

That's an old statement back in the day.

I know.

You still waltz around the desk.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Trip Life.

Fantastic.

hoe Dennis on it again.

oh boy.

Hey, I have a question for you.

Yep.

That Gordon.

So when you're talking about,

people and how they like,

are diff can be difficult to manage in my experience, the ones that are difficult.

Are the ones that actually can really make a difference in your business.

Those of man, it's just like a horse man.

if you can get the Holter on that horse, it's gonna plow the field

for you, but it's getting to that point and that's where you are.

It's showing them, Hey, this is not gonna hurt.

I'm putting it on there.

Here's a little bit of sugar.

Let's go now.

Let's make something happen.

Because people are happiest when they are accomplishing something.

So it's all, if I would say this to the small

business owner, if you're gonna hire a racehorse, so to speak.

that will be one of your biggest nightmares, but one of your

most profitable nightmares.

Yeah.

they are the hardest to deal with.

I know, because I was all that in a bag of chips.

I was the primadonna.

I was in the office at seven 30.

I was done by two and on the beach.

whoa.

because, I came in.

I put in eight or 10 hours in a six hour period, all my stuff was covered.

I'd CY eight, everything for the day.

and that's a mindset that's a come in, you're gonna kill it, and you go

Every, every good salesperson, HVC and I manage, HVA sales guys that were

doing five to 6 million a year in sales.

Okay.

They were my biggest.

Pain in the butt.

Not the easiest people to manage, but you have to figure out a way to get to 'em.

And that way is are you absolutely have, 'cause most of those

guys are money driven, right?

But some of 'em become complacent.

So you have to find out with them, are you where you want to be?

Okay.

Are you there yet?

If the answer is yes, I said, okay, you're profitable.

You're killing it.

Go do your thing.

You need any help, let me know.

You're okay then.

You don't need anything else.

Nothing else.

You're good to go.

Okay.

Now I've seen, small businesses where the temptation

of the owner or manager trying to impress the owner is the optics.

you know what?

Sorry Gordon.

I know you've got all your stuff done, but you're leaving at two

to go and golf or hit the beach or hang out with your grandkids.

That's not gonna work for me.

I need you back in the office at five, just so people see that you're working.

that optics, the, that it's a false almost, and administrative.

Type of an outlook as opposed to results?

in the sales I was in, I didn't have to be in the office.

I was in there in the morning and I should be out on the street most of the time.

Yeah.

By the way, my manager always knew what was going on.

Okay.

I never left him out of the equation.

Okay.

But do you just want me to sit here and look at my computer for three hours?

I, what is it you'd like me to do, but what the, what the point is.

Is most of those people are still driven to make more.

They want more.

Okay, so how long have you been stuck in this particular area in sales?

I can help you get that extra 10% in there.

Are you interested in that?

It's kind like a sale to a customer.

Hey, if I increase your productivity, okay, would you be interested in that?

And would you gimme the time?

Okay.

Some of it may be hard for you to understand, but at the end of the day,

I will get you there if you will allow,

once you find that hot button, right?

and that's the Gordon Magic as I understand it, that you pride

yourself on finding what's important.

To the people you coach, where a lot of coaches have a template and

say, okay, this is coaching 1 0 1.

We do A, B, C, D, E. No matter who it is, this is what we do.

That's not what Gordon does.

The way I understand it.

I like to say I manage a team.

I coach to the individual.

Okay.

To the uppers.

I'm, I manage a team.

To me, I coach to the individual that every one of my people have different

needs in their life or different places in their life have different

things going on in their life.

And I understand most all of those.

And it becomes very helpful when you're coaching someone if you

know what's going on with them.

Now, here's what a lot of people are saying, I don't have time to do that.

I got enough going on.

I don't have time to worry about what's going on in somebody's life that's gonna

make 'em not wanna sell or do something.

Okay, fine.

You get what you're asking for.

That's a mindset that'll kill your business.

And you can keep hiring people and circulating people and hiring people

because you're not taking time to find out what's going on with the people

that you have, that you just fired.

You fired him because he wasn't productive.

Why wasn't he productive?

'cause you threw him a manual, you threw him.

Watch, want him watch some videos for 12 hours, send him to tech school

and throw him out on the street.

Do you know anything about him?

What does he want?

What does he need?

No, he just needs to go out and do this.

This is what we taught him to do.

And that's a lot of the mindset out there.

And it's a killer.

Yeah.

one, one of my, again, pet peeve topics is this very topic when, when

particularly new managers, when someone is not performing up to standard.

The first response is, they just need a kick in the ass.

they need a shove.

They're not motivated.

They can do this, but they're not doing it.

They're just lazy.

Okay.

That's the first response.

Guess what?

I found out?

I made that mistake as that 26-year-old manager, some fool, decided I was

capable of managing at that young age.

I wasn't, but I figured it out.

And you know what?

It's usually not motivation.

Its ability.

They don't have the confidence in that skill that we assume, oh,

everybody knows how to do that.

No, they don't.

They don't know how to do it, and if they don't feel confident in

doing that thing that you need them to do, they won't do it.

They won't look like a fool in front of their clients and others.

So it's not motivation many of the times it is a lack of skill, a lack of ability.

Have you found that to be true?

Yes, unfortunately.

I think it just,

I was thinking about this interview beforehand and it's I know

sometimes I say things that I can just hear some of the managers

I've worked for in the past going.

Yeah.

Gordon does all this gobbledy goop.

Okay.

Gobby goop.

Do I have time for a three minute story?

Yes.

Okay.

when I was in the industry that I re was a high end digital print industry

for 31 years and I had seven states and overlaid about 200 so odd people.

And we had a new product release going on in, in Nevada.

And so I had 45 salespeople, managers, VP, regionals, all

sitting there and I had this product sitting up on the stage up here.

and I explained what it was, Ben Puckered peeled, did all this kind of stuff.

And then, and I got off that, and then I walked to the front of

the stage and I go, who here has made a hundred thousand dollars?

Now understand this, back in the nineties, a hundred grand meant something.

Now I can't go to McDonald's.

but,

but what I'm saying is that certain hands went up and it was kinda weird,

that not all the hands went up.

And I, and it's so who?

Who would like to make a hundred thousand dollars and not all the

hands went up again, which even, and I paid attention to who those were.

But what happened is that's where I put myself out there that look it.

If you wanna make a hundred grand, I fly in on Wednesday morning.

Every week I leave, Friday morning, I want to be booked from the time I get

off the plane till the time I leave, and I will get you to a hundred grand.

And that take a lot of seat time in the car.

But while I'm in the car, I'm finding out where this guy's mindset is

and where his head's at, how can I get this guy to perform Now I got

all the bags of goodies and golden nuggets and sells this and sales that

and how to overcome and objections.

I got that whole bag I carry around all the time,

right?

But it doesn't good.

Just pull that stuff out of the bag if it's not gonna be received properly.

Just a short story.

And by the way, those people were my references for probably 20 years that

I've taken them from 35, 40 5,000 a year to over a hundred, 150, 200,000.

Now, I'm curious about the ones that didn't

put their hand up, Gordon.

'Cause I was the

managers and I said, you need to bring these people in.

And obviously, if you don't wanna make a hundred grand in this particular

business, why are you even here?

Yeah.

because the minimum product we sold was 75,000 up

to four and a half, 5 million.

Wow.

So did a bunch of them leave?

Did a bunch of them kind of

Nobody leaves

believing you?

No.

it turned out very well, because of that method and that process,

and this isn't braggadocious, but I became number one regional manager in

the country in six months and remained there at a 289% closing average, at which

remained six months after I resigned.

Wow.

That's not braggadocio.

That is, those are hard and fast pieces of evidence that.

This is what you do and it works and I and the buy-in of the people because

you can't pull somebody towards that.

You gotta walk with them.

I, it's funny 'cause I just, in the last five years,

every company I've been at that I've gotten the numbers up, but it's not

like I'm doing anything miraculous.

It's just getting the people to know that they got somebody in their corner that

understands that's been there, that's done it, and that I'm gonna help you do better.

if you don't wanna do better, then fine.

but it just, it is amazing if you get people to, to understand that someone's

there to help them and someone's there to nurture them or listen to

their BIT, bi and I don't want, I say not, but, try to be HR friendly.

no,

but what I'm saying is we don't have an hr I can sit what?

Yeah.

Yes.

We don't have an hr. I can sit there.

Anything goes,

I can sit there and watch my numbers, come up after about

three, four, or five or six months, and it's not like I did anything bizarre.

Yes, I do training and I help people on what I call.

The more finesse side of sailing, the selling, the inner parts of the

processes, the little golden nuggets that take you over the top, on a call.

and building the rapport stuff, with, along with doing that, but

it's just a matter of, it's amazing.

Even grown men like to know someone gets them or is there for them.

And I'm also very huge on accolades.

My phone beeps all the time.

Every time somebody closes something, I get a beep, man.

I'm immediately on there saying, good job, bud.

Congratulations.

Good for you.

Good for you.

yeah, and everybody likes that.

I, Hey, I've set, to people that are in their fifties and sixties

that have worked for me and says, man, I'm, really proud of you.

What's an incredible continuation with Gordon Wilson.

We heard about his elevator coaching philosophy, his preference for

questions over statements, and that story about the 19-year-old who went

from being offended, a top performer.

Gordon's insights about treating team members as individuals and

taking the sales stigma off the table are particularly powerful

for small business owners.

Now, in part three is where Gordon opens up about what drives him and as a coach,

his thoughts on hiring experienced versus inexperienced salespeople and managing

different generations in the workplace.

Plus his surprising answer about what he'd do if he could start over at 32.

Don't miss this compelling conclusion next week.

This is Producer Boomer from Connect

& Convert.