Score-carding for Success- How to Build an Elite Sales Team

Lucas Price: [: 00:00:00

Today on Building Elite Sales Teams, we have Kyle Norton with us. Kyle Norton is the SVP of sales at Owner. com. He has 15 years in revenue leadership, most recently at Shopify, where he ran sales and customer success for Canada. And before that, he was the VP of sales at league, taking it from zero to 200 to 25 million in ARR.

Kyle, thanks for being with us here today.

Kyle Norton: Appreciate you having me looking forward to it.

Lucas Price: Kyle, in your experience as a long time sales leader, what are some of the key elements that you found around building an elite sales organization?

Kyle Norton: Yeah. So there's a few pillars that I think I try to build around. Talent it's first and foremost, the second piece is systems engineering. So the sales tech, your infrastructure data business process is, the second big pillar. Playbooks is a big one. Playbooks and frameworks what your reps are actually following to get deals done.

enablement and training you [: 00:01:00

But those five things working in concerts are certainly the ones that I think most about.

Lucas Price: So when those things are all working in concert, what's happening in your sales organization where you know that you have an elite organization that's firing on all cylinders?

ter over quarter consistency [: 00:02:00

And so that repeatability is really the sign of. Your system's working and the business working versus, a much more sporadic, lumpy type of performance, which typically means that, the system might not be doing a ton, but you've got some great talent. They're making magic happen. So repeatability is really big and specifically within that, something that I argue frequently that maybe.

going to be great no matter [: 00:03:00

Yeah. Like a true superstar can't succeed. They'll always figure it out. What's that middle class

Lucas Price: So if you're hitting your number, but you only have a couple of people who are really carrying the rest of the team and your quota attainment's really low, then that would be something where the rest of the pieces, the systems engineering, the playbooks, the culture, the talent pieces aren't necessarily in place the way you want them to be.

Kyle Norton: usually? Yeah, I think that's the indicator, but it's, it's exciting to have great performers and to think that you're doing a good job because some people are. Doing really well, but really that has a lot less to do with us than it does the individual. And my experience.

Lucas Price: so what would be the percentage of your team that was hitting quota that you would say, we have a healthy organization we're hitting, we're it doesn't have to be a precise percentage, but a range where you say, this is what I'm looking for. To indicate that we really have an elite organization.

like, where did you set the [: 00:04:00

And then that middle caught 70 or 80%. What's their attainment and repeatability and sort of month over month success. I think that's the indicator of the success of your system. And so if most of those people are getting better every month, if there's a fairly consistent quota attainment, Yeah. If you're setting fair quotas that would be a pretty good place to, to measure.

Lucas Price: So on the building elite sales teams podcast, we often talk about talent and we're going to do that here again today. Can you tell us, what are some of the. Basics that you think need to be in place to, to build the talent portion of that pillar.

from the book who, in terms [: 00:05:00

Can you secure those people? Can you get them to opt in? And so on the talent acquisition side, that's it's those four things. Thank And then once they have started at your company, then there's a couple of phases. There is the, there's phase one, how well can you onboard and get people to some sort of initial proficiency?

orking out has an incredible [: 00:06:00

And then on an ongoing basis, what are you doing to consistently coach and develop your team? How did they develop new skills? How quickly are they progressing? I think the velocity of improvement of at the individual level is the single biggest indicator, whether or not you're going to have sustainable success, because we know that markets change so much and the number only goes one way.

It only goes up. So just to keep pace with the natural inertia of a startup and quotas going up sort of 15, 20, 50 percent year over year, how fast are you getting your teams ready to carry that load? And, beyond Those would be the major facets of talent development. And then, the last piece would be your career planning.

e, being able to keep people [: 00:07:00

Lucas Price: Lots of great information there. Since we don't have time to talk about all of it, I'm going to try to, pick one thing and go down the rabbit hole on one of the things that you mentioned there. What's the reason that scorecards are important to you?

Kyle Norton: So it's all about consistency. And being able to consistently hire the right people for the role and eliminate the mishires as a crazy impact because the delta between getting three out of four hires, right? And two out of four correct is has a massive compounding effect. And so I find that historically sales leaders hire with a lot of feel and they're teaching like a very Open hiring process with not a lot of structure, but it's impossible to compare and give a fair evaluation to a number of candidates.

, the order of the questions [: 00:08:00

I think Daniel Kahneman makes this argument in a very compelling manner and thinking fast and slow. And so being able to force yourself to evaluate each individual component of A candidate gives you way more clarity as to how this person has performed. And I think especially in sales, the biggest challenge here is charisma colors all.

And so by [: 00:09:00

Conscientiousness, preparation, curiosity, drive like really specific things, then it forces me to consider that element individually, as opposed to if you just think about this interaction holistically, okay, 1 to 5. What did I think about this person? Somebody who's extremely charismatic and very well spoken 10, it tends to just like color your entire evaluation when really like charisma isn't, it's not unimportant in sales, but it's only maybe one factor out of 15 or 20, but without a proper structure and scorecarding, it tends to bleed into everything.

The scorecarding makes you discreetly score each component which helps for better decision making.

Lucas Price: If there's a sales leader listening, who's Hey, I'm at an early stage startup. I'm the single decision maker for the hires that we make. I've done a pretty good job of hiring the right people in the past. I probably don't need a scorecard.

ecision makers, but when I'm [: 00:10:00

Kyle Norton: Yeah, for sure. It might not need to be as comprehensive as what you're going to build when other people are executing your playbook, but this is to help you reduce your own cognitive bias and help you from making mistakes. It's so easy to get swept up in things that are immaterial in an interview process and.

Have all of the cognitive biases affect us and lead us down the wrong path that having at least a bullet point scorecard that you're going off of written down. So you can reference it. It's just going to help you make better decisions

I've personally sat down and done a scorecard for somebody that I really liked or didn't like as much.

like almost a single question[: 00:11:00

They don't have that top level of drive. And then you just look back, you're like, okay. I liked him, but that's a no, and it only takes that happening one time for you to really understand the power of the scorecard and to also understand the flaw in our judgment as hiring managers.

Lucas Price: yeah, I've had that same experience in the candidate debrief where I've done one of the interviews, other people have done interviews, other interviews, and then I go in and have that conversation and realize. Oh, I had a blind spot with this candidate. I was totally wrong about them, and that's happened to me

Kyle Norton: We did a really disciplined job about at this at Shopify. And we're, I'm, I haven't been as, as diligent at owner, but you saying it makes me go, Oh, I got to bring back. I got to bring back the debrief because it is, it's such a clarifying process.

Lucas Price: You mentioned some of the traits that are commonly looked for among salespeople that you put on a scorecard. Can you tell us how do you structure your scorecard as a whole?

to match the specific role. [: 00:12:00

The type of customer, the type of sale that you run. So there's a framework I like to use that I've evolved depending on the roles I'm hiring for, but it's, is the rough structure is pretty consistent. So the scorecard has three components. One is mindset. Two is skills and then three is specific knowledge.

And so in my current world, I'm hiring, first one to five year sellers we're SMB oriented high velocity sale. So my top segments, I've got more experienced sellers, but for the most part, it's like quite transactional. And so in this environment, mindset is way more important than anything else.

those happen to be in places [: 00:13:00

You've got a lot of passion for what we're doing. If you've got that mindset. Category and abundance, like that's where I'm betting all day. So at least 50 percent of my current scorecard is is mindset. And it's even more than that for BDR, a little bit less than that for AE. Cause I've got more data to go off of then skills.

I want to see, call it, so if it's 60 percent mindset. We're 25 percent skillset and 15 percent specific knowledge. If you've worked in a restaurant, you're passionate about restaurants. The specific knowledge does matter for sure. I like it to be there, but I'm not optimizing for it. If I was hiring enterprise sellers and I was selling into.

dev teams. Yeah, if you have [: 00:14:00

So I mentioned the mindset stuff skills is all the sales acumen pieces. How's the, what's the business acumen? Do you have good communication written verbally? And again, that depends on what you do more of in your sales cycle. And then specific knowledge is, do you know the market? Do you, have you sold this type of technology before?

Lucas Price: You mentioned on my set mindset, you've mentioned several different traits or competencies that fall under mindset you've and you've been clear that it really, the right ones depend on the specifics of the role and the specifics of the company and stuff like that.

But are there a few that you tend to see consistently come up in sales roles that, are almost always there?

er what role I'm hiring for. [: 00:15:00

I don't care what it is, but did you. Do stuff at a really high level because it shows a commitment to learning a desire to be really great. Clearly you have to be coachable. So history of excellence is a big thing that I'm always trying to tease out. Coachability for sure. A learner's mindset.

So a consistent desire to learn and improve. And do you take that on to yourself? Are you growing outside of your role, reading podcasts, courses, whatever it is. Resilience is always there. Drive. Do you have that top end drive to be great and to be a part of something? Great. Agility is a big thing.

ce, but I think an important [: 00:16:00

Lucas Price: Is it distinct from adaptability or would you say it's the same kind of adaptability is the same kind of concept as agility?

Kyle Norton: Can you keep up with a pace of change? For sure. Intelligence is one of the other ones. Just have like raw smarts that I can build around. And then the last one is EQ. And so under EQ, there's are you self aware? Can you manage yourself? Do you do you have good relationship awareness?

That's a big piece of it. And then there's also a character bucket in mindset that I'm also trying to tease out authenticity, integrity, accountability, some of those things that I put into this character bucket, you could argue those should be there, those should be like different. Criteria, but that would overweight, I think those things in comparison to drive and resilience.

That's why the EQ bucket has 4 things under it because they're triggers to think about, but as a line item, EQ is just worth one of those weights same with character

you've seen this as well as [: 00:17:00

And so you want to see people who can learn and apply quickly, apply the things they've learned. Sometimes I see. Sales organizations, but also other types of organizations who just think, Oh, this person's really smart. Let's hire them and they really need, and that's a good checkbox.

They're really smart. But do they have a history of being able to apply that and achieve that excellence that you talked about before?

Kyle Norton: It's such a great point. And goes back to the importance of scorecarding because sometimes you can just be wowed by somebody's raw intellect and then it colors, it's got the halo effect on everything else. But then you sit down and you're like it didn't actually seem like they're a crazy hard worker.

one criteria as it is. Just [: 00:18:00

But very much agreed on your point there.

Lucas Price: Yeah, when it gets down to the nuts and bolts of, conducting interviews or doing assessments, what are some of your favorite techniques or tips or interview questions in order to you. Tease out specific aspects, some of the specific aspects of mindset that you mentioned today.

Kyle Norton: For sure. And in my hiring form in lever. So the form that the hiring manager is filling out, the questions are all written in the exact order I want them asked in. And then there's even prompts for what is a good answer and what's like a non good answer what are we looking for?

the hiring manager tells the [: 00:19:00

So they get a lot more depth. They get a 25 minute video as opposed to a 10 minute spiel of me going as fast as I can in an interview where it's here's about the product, the problem we solve, the customer. Where we're at as a company and then how, how we're thinking about growing in sales.

So they get that as a consistent part of the experience. And then when it comes to the questions to tease some of this stuff out, a lot of this is just trying to dig multiple levels deeper into the why behind everything. And so if you've read top grading, it really teaches you to just keep asking.

that project, how would they [: 00:20:00

Approach to the deal and the approach to your career. So a favorite question of mine is good to great. What do you think separates somebody who can do a hundred percent of a quota pretty consistently, like a, a super solid performer, somebody you're glad to have on your team versus a top 5 percent presidents club type individual.

And I want to see how they think about what drives peak performance and what I do. Earlier in the call is I, when I'm asking them about their background and some of the results, and I'm like, oh, and what do you attribute your success to? Like, where do you think that's come from? And it's interesting to to compare those 2 answers to 1 another, because oftentimes they're talking about good to great as like an outward looking thing.

et. Cause they're not there. [: 00:21:00

That's another really key question. So like outside of the job, like how are you sharpening your skills today? And you get, When you get vague answers, they're doing very little Oh, I listen to gong calls. I specifically frame. The question is outside of getting better on the job.

How are you getting better? If the answer is gone calls, then I know they're not really taking their learning upon themselves. I want to hear it's Oh, man, I'm a podcast junkie. I listen to this and this. And then I'm always asking. The like multiple follow ups. Oh, and so what was the last thing that you, what was the most, what was the most impactful thing you've read in the last six months and what was your specific learning from that book and how did you apply it?

me like, what's the, what's [: 00:22:00

I had a guy Who was like, oh, it must've heard me like talking about this somewhere else He's like really pumping up how much he reads and the stuff and he was talking about a book I'm like great. Like I read that book not too long ago What was your favorite takeaway? And then I had a question about it and he's oh, yeah It's and then he just exits the meeting and then comes back on And clearly he's like, Oh, sorry, internet connection.

It's raining here. And then I reasked the question and then you can see, he's re trying to read a summary and answer the question as I'm going butchering the answer. But like that's what I'm trying to get. That's what I'm trying to get at with sort of that top grading, like multiple levels.

Answer. So the, to loop back to your question, how, what am I asking about those specific attributes? I've got specific questions for most attributes on the scorecard, but then I'm trying to dig one or two levels deeper to stress test their answers on it,

s I talk about a lot is what [: 00:23:00

And in three to five minutes, you don't really know whether they've actually done this before if they've just read about it on the internet. And so one of the things that I think that you're getting at that can make interviews a lot more effective is that you have fewer questions and lots of potential follow ups to each question.

Kyle Norton: Yeah. And there's even stuff in the case study where I'm trying to build in ways for them to perform the things like the behavioral questions only get you so far. I really want to see them perform. So if coachability is important to you, then in our interview process, we have a component where we give them feedback and we see how they react to it.

And then we ask them a [: 00:24:00

And then later in the process, I asked them. And so if you were to do this again, what would you do differently? If you do this exercise again, some people like, Oh, I'd probably practice more or I don't know. Like I feel like I did really well. Okay. I just gave you a bunch of feedback five minutes earlier.

You'd hope that people go back to that or have the self awareness to have like specific things. And I'm trying to find demonstrations of those traits as much as I find answers. And then, if you're hiring managers, You really want to like, see if you can get to the experience of a rep.

And so if I'm hiring managers and the thing that I'm testing for is servant leadership and how much do you invest in your people? I'll just ask them, Hey do you mind if I reach out cold to a few people that have reported to you in the past? I don't ask for references. I'm like, can I just reach out cold?

eedback on these things. And [: 00:25:00

Lucas Price: So we've heard some great advice from you about the importance of scorecards, how you score cards, how you gather the data to be able to give those scores what should sales leaders watch out for when implementing this, and what are some of the common mistakes?

Kyle Norton: Yeah. Context is King for sure. Your business is going to be unique in a number of different ways, like the stage of the company, the resourcing and the. The resourcing at a later stage company versus the chaos and rapid pace of change at a much younger company mean you different, need a very different profile of rep potentially.

e by the fact that you're SMB[: 00:26:00

We are trying to represent somebody's. Being and performance as an individual and like all of these complexities as complex as people are in like a 10 score criteria. So you are gonna be wrong. And they are gonna, they're flawed by nature scorecards. But it's not the, it's not the score that is really the most important thing.

It's the fact that you've gone through the process and you've been forced to think. Systematically and rigorously about that person. It's like with chat GPT or any of these gen AI tools. If you ask them a question and then you ask them the same question, you tell it. Think logically, think step by step.

terly planning, even if it's [: 00:27:00

Of measuring people criteria by criteria will force the mental clarity and help your decision making.

Lucas Price: One of the things that I talk about a lot is that the best hiring decisions are human decisions and you have different pieces of data, including the output of the scorecard that's, that is a very important piece of data, but you have to triangulate that with the references and with a bunch of other stuff.

And I think that if sometimes people will try to put like way too many items on the scorecard, like 50 items or what,

Or they'll get really concerned about the weights on the scorecard. And I think that a lot of that stuff is like driving towards a sense of precision. That's really a false sense of precision.

ed on the final grades. That [: 00:28:00

Kyle Norton: That triangulation is massively important. The other piece of advice I would give to folks is when it feels off, just say no. When you want, you got a seat to fill, this person looks great on paper. There's like a bunch of the right signals. If it just doesn't totally feel right, you're way better to say no.

Like it all that always goes. That always goes badly. So just leave the seat unfilled as painful as that is. I'll also give like one plug for yardstick just before we wrap, because I think what caught my eye when we were chatting at the. In Napa was, something that I've been wanting to do for a long time.

t to understand what in your [: 00:29:00

Cause these, this scorecard is just like an artificial construct that I've built based on all of the patterns that I've seen, but it's going to be very wrong. And so I think the thing that it was most compelling about yardstick was being able to have this data there, be able to compare this to future performance and continually fine tune what we are giving the most weight to.

So I think that's the other really great reason to scorecard and The feedback is trust the data and revisit, like we revisited a bunch of our BDR hiring interviews. Like we looked at the interviews and looked at okay, like what did I think about this person six months ago and what do I think about them now and what should I have caught because that feedback mechanism doesn't need to go into an official data informed regression analysis waiting, but just the.

I haven't seen in the market [: 00:30:00

Lucas Price: Kyle, thanks for saying that and and thanks for spending this time with us today and sharing all this great information. We really appreciate having you on building elite sales teams.