When macroeconomic conditions massively disrupt your ability to sell to existing and new customers

[00:00:12] Welcome to episode 143 of the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces Podcast. I am one of your co-hosts, Steven Rothberg. I'm the founder of College Recruiter Job Search Site, and I am flying solo today because Peter, apparently, he's got better things to do. And actually, if you knew what he was doing, you would agree. He wins today, but I am not a loser because I am here today with a Deborah Newton of Newton Steel.

[00:00:38] And we are going to be talking about things that are maybe out of your control, maybe within your control. Maybe there are things that although you didn't cause them, you can still prepare for them or better react to them. But before we get into the meat of the discussion, Deborah, maybe you can tell our listeners like a little bit about you, Newton Steel. Who are you? What do you guys do?

[00:01:04] Well, thank you. Awesome. Great to be here. Thank you for having me. And yes, Deborah Newton. I am the founder president of Newton Steel. The short way to say it is a build and or rebuild sales teams.

[00:01:21] So whether there's a business that is starting new or you're the owner, solo salesperson and wanting to build out the sales team or have been, you know, whether you have one to 20 sales reps, things that may be plateaued, things that may be stalled out or just want to make take what's good and make it better.

[00:01:42] That's where we're going to be. So obviously you help organizations with salespeople that they already have. Do you also help them on the recruiting side? Yes. And in two different ways, because I feel I work really close with recruiters, mostly because, as you know, in this in your industry, if there is positions that are open, that's awesome.

[00:02:06] That means that there's growth. But if you're placing candidates and the company doesn't have systems in place to set them up for success, and whose fault is it going to be if it doesn't work out? Well, they're recruiters. So to work along with the recruiters on the company side to make sure that the systems are in place. So that way, when said person is hired, they're set up for success, hit the ground running and everything's great. There's everything's clear. Everyone's aligned. They know what the job that needs to be done.

[00:02:36] And pipelines are set, sourcing all of those. The good fun things that make people successful are in place, are set, held accountable and then successful. Yeah. And obviously, like every organization has its like hiring successes, hiring failures. I think somebody much wiser than me once said to me that people problems, like when your people are not performing well, those are usually leadership problems.

[00:03:01] You didn't hire the right person or you did and things change. You didn't have the right systems in place and whatever. So you can kind of come in objectively and help with that. And that's a perfect way to say it. I love how you said that with things change. They might have been good at the time. Something happened. And people are still good. And that's where I say take what's good and make it better. Because things are working good, but something might have changed, as we know, within the last six, seven years. Just overall, the changes of the things that we can't control.

[00:03:30] One or two major things have happened in the last six or seven years. Yeah. So speaking of that, that's a fantastic segue, Deborah. So the topic that we're going to get into today is sort of like macroeconomics and when they impact sales. Sometimes macroeconomic issues like inflation, like recessions, like war, like a pandemic,

[00:03:56] things like that have a significant impact sometimes on all industries, like COVID certainly did. Sometimes they're very isolated to certain industries. And the job board recruitment marketplace industry is not at all immune to that. In some ways, actually, we're more susceptible to that because if there are macroeconomics that are causing employers to hire a lot, that's a great thing for our industry.

[00:04:20] If it's causing employers to hold off on hiring, maybe even letting a lot of people go, that's really hard for our industry. So maybe we can kind of go chronologically in a discussion. How do you recommend to leaders of organizations, job boards or not, to better be prepared for changes in macroeconomic conditions? You know, the good and the bad. What should they be looking for? What should they be doing before it hits?

[00:04:49] That is a very powerful question. Cool. Then we're all done and nobody else. There you go. Yes. People are here to hear you, not me. They're all crushing. No. Well, and I do. Yeah. It's agnostic to all industries. And again, going back to the pandemic or anything that is impacting the economy, the things that we can't control. There's so many different ways to answer that. But at the same time, there isn't any way.

[00:05:18] I think to take it in an individual sense. And you're right. The leaders and how we're impactful. Everyone looks to you and things that are happening. It's changing. You're the most loved and the most hated person in the same day at the same time. I think that the main piece is the self-awareness around it and what you can control of that. Having the ability to sometimes just say, I don't know, and we're in this together and linking arms with the people.

[00:05:43] It could take advantage of the opportunity to do just that and lean into we're all in this together. You know, no one has the answers. And I'm just thinking back for when everything had happened. Everyone was looking at everyone with the pandemic happening and no one really knew. But we knew what we could control. And it was within the office. Yes, we were a global company. I was working with a multibillion dollar company at the time. We were one piece of that puzzle.

[00:06:09] And it was a matter of the survival within and being able to lean into leverage. So take advantage of those times to get closer to your people to understand as well as a self-awareness piece. Let's hit rewind if we can. And like in the months or even years before something like a pandemic hits, there's a war. You know, things that are like very much outside of our organization's control, but really impact our organization.

[00:06:35] There's an expression that I use sometimes like expect the unexpected. Or if you're a Monty Python fan, like nobody expects a Spanish Inquisition. Is that something that you coach leaders to do to kind of like run scenarios? Not necessarily that there's going to be COVID seven months from now. But what if our sales fall through the floor within weeks for two years? You know, what do we do?

[00:07:04] Is that something that you talk to sales leaders about? In a roundabout way. I think you don't want to be doom and gloom and live in this space of the sky is falling and what if and what if. Because I think that that also negatively impacts. And then you're always looking for the worst rather than highlighting the good. So I think that there's a balance within that. I think if your company and the numbers are down, down, down, down and never for two years straight,

[00:07:31] there's clearly more going on and something needs to be taken, hopefully, before those 24 months, maybe month one or two, to be able to address that because something has switched, something has changed. I always say the most expensive words anybody can say is that's the way it's always been done. If anything, the world is forever changing. And I mean, with your industry, any industry, to be able to keep your finger on the pulse of what's happening, so that way you can be agile and move and make those money moves, for lack of better ways,

[00:08:00] before those two years or, I mean, unless the money tree in the backyard is able to fund that, I don't know what company would be able to survive. All of that to say, sure, the what ifs and things that have happened, that's by having your finger on the pulse of what is going on, what your competitors are doing, what's happening in the industry, what ripples you see coming possibly, to be prepared for them.

[00:08:27] I don't know what else to do besides, again, the awareness of it, but there are so many unknowns. So to be able to do what you can control right now, of course, if history is repeating itself, hopefully you're prepared. That's the one main thing. So what is it? Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, or shame on you, shame on you, shame on me, flip that around. Right, right, exactly. Yeah, there's only so much that we can do.

[00:08:53] I would caution because you don't want to live in that fear, only because as a leader, yes, you are controlling the mood, the tone, the culture of your organization. So if you're doom and gloom and preparing for the worst rather than celebrating for your people, that's a very fine line, very thick line, rather, that you'd want to have in the office. When you and I were in the green room right before we hit record, I can't remember exactly the words you used, but it was something to the effect of like, like focus on what you can control.

[00:09:23] So let's talk about that. Yes. You're running a business and sales skyrocket because something really good has happened that maybe you didn't have much to do with. You were just sort of an accidental beneficiary of it. Or sales really hurt, like you lose some major accounts or maybe even across the board because of, again, war, inflation, tariffs, pandemic, whatever the flavor of the day might be.

[00:09:50] So you come into work on Monday and you've got one or 180 salespeople who are looking to you for direction. What do you do? How do you approach that? Yeah, no, it does. A lot of it is the stars aligning. A lot of it is the luck, the chance, everything finally coming together. I'm a true believer that activity equals results.

[00:10:15] And as the leader, even when times are tough, when times are good, especially, believe it or not, it's when people let off the gas when times are good. It's not when they are bad because at that point, the activity, you're grinding, you're grinding, but you let off the gas when things are good. And that's when you hit that plateau because all that activity that you're once doing, you're coming at 100%. Then things are good. You might bring that activity down to 80, 85%. You're not going to get that again.

[00:10:45] So there's going to be ebbs and flows because that's just the nature of any sales cycle, especially, you know, depending on the complexity. But that activity, what I can control, what I would control as myself, holding myself accountable and keeping that high standard as well as the team for when those ebbs and flows come in, that that activity doesn't waver. Because I do feel that it's not when things are tough because that's when you're, again,

[00:11:15] I'll repeat myself, you're grinding, you're doing all of the things to elevate that. And you finally get to that point. It's when you let your foot off of the gas. And those things you can control. Sure. It's great to take a second to breathe, to high five, to celebrate all the great things. But to get back into it sooner rather than later is crucial to keep that momentum. And I think that that is where a lot of people let off the gas and where I see, and it doesn't happen overnight.

[00:11:41] I always equate weight loss, weight gain, you know, the three, four months that it takes to be able to see the results. I wish it was, you know, one week of diet and one week at the gym and woo, you're back. But it doesn't. A whole week? It takes a whole week? Yeah. Well, are you a pessimist? I know. But it's the same thing for organizations. You know, a lot of the business owners that I'm talking to, things were really good. But then they're at that plateau.

[00:12:10] They're at that peak of. And it's, again, I hate to go back to the weight loss, weight gain, but it's the same thing. You get to that point. That's great. And then you're stuck, you know. So to kind of change it up, to pay attention to that, to be aware of what's happening. And, OK, what was I doing to get there? What did I do to change? Or did I change? Not everything that's going on around us that we can't control. That's where a lot of the excuses come into play. Because you're doing so good.

[00:12:37] It's so much easier to blame, well, this changed and all the things, the macro things that you can't change that are outside of our control. It's very, it's easier to blame and make excuses than it is to do the hard work again. Because it's hard work, you know. It's tough to be able to put yourself in that mindset of like, oh my gosh, all those blood, sweat and tears. But remind yourself of the feeling when it finally paid off.

[00:13:05] Remind yourself of how appreciative that you were for all of those blood, sweat and what you learned along the way, who you became, what you, how your life evolved. So I think going back to those pieces of it versus deflecting versus making excuses. Yeah. That's what you need to pay attention to. It's definitely easy to sort of to take credit for good things that we really had little to do with.

[00:13:30] And also to deflect or refuse to take credit. Or blame. To get blame. To the things that actually were, are doing. And we're all human. We all make mistakes. So I always feel like saying that you made a mistake is a sign of strength, not weakness. 100%. And if we can't acknowledge that we could have done better, maybe even should have done

[00:13:58] better, then aren't we just dooming ourselves to making the same mistake the next time if we just refuse to make improvements? So we need to jump. I want to ask you like one quick last thing before we jump. And that is, and again, I think in the green room we were talking about this a little bit. My words, not yours. I think you had a really good way of putting this. But to me, the choice to be inactive, the choice to not make a decision, to not take action

[00:14:29] is a choice to take action. Because essentially what you're doing is you're abdicating. You're saying, I'm not going to do anything about this, which then means somebody else is. Talk to that for like 30 seconds if you can about like from a sales leadership standpoint, why it's important that leaders need to lead, that leaders need to take action. I think that the mic drop moment, I think we could drop it right there. I think that was perfect the way that you framed it.

[00:14:58] I think it's the self-awareness. And I know I say that word far too often, but it really is being self-aware and understanding your part in the grand scheme of things within the organization or within absolutely the leadership part. Again, it's the most loved and the most hated all in the same day, sometimes in the same breath. Yes. But reminding yourself of that and again, focusing on the good, what has happened,

[00:15:26] what has come out of it and not giving up, not letting yourself slip and setting that example because you're setting that tone for the rest of your team. Debra, thank you so much. Thank you. And really, really appreciate the time. And hopefully those out there who are in a sales leadership role or leading an IT team or whatever, or looking to get into that role, which I think a lot of our audience is, that

[00:15:55] they'll take these nuggets of wisdom. Thank you. Awesome. I appreciate it very, very much. Thank you, Stephen. Cheers, Amber.