In this episode of B2B Marketing Methods, host Terri Hoffman, CEO of Marketing Refresh, interviews Leah Salinas, Director at the Alexander Group, about her journey from entrepreneur to executive search expert. Leah shares her personal story of running a successful business for 14 years and her decision to transition to a different career path focused on recruiting executive roles in various B2B industries.
The discussion dives into key considerations for building out sales and marketing organizations, the differences between sales leaders and salespeople, and how transferable skills can drive business growth. Leah also provides insights into the essential role of data-driven strategies in sales and the importance of overall organizational structure in supporting effective marketing. Tune in to learn valuable tips on navigating career transitions and building high-performance teams.
Topics Discussed:
- Leah’s 14-Year Entrepreneurial Journey
- Making the Leap from Founder to Executive Recruiter
- Building High-Performing Sales and Marketing Teams
- The Role of Data in Modern Sales Strategy
- Organizational Structure and Career Transitions
To learn more about Leah Salinas, connect with her on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-comstock-salinas
To learn more about Terri, connect with her on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrihartley/
To connect with Marketing Refresh, visit: MarketingRefresh.com
Full Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Terri Hoffman: Welcome to B2B Marketing Methods. I’m your host, Terri Hoffman, and I’m the CEO of Marketing Refresh. Let’s face it, embracing digital marketing is daunting. This podcast was created to make it more approachable. Join me as we talk to CEOs, sales leaders, and revenue growth experts who will share lessons learned and tips from their own journeys.
[00:00:24] Terri Hoffman: Welcome to another episode of B2B marketing methods. Excited today to have my guest, who is Leah Salinas. Leah is a director with the Alexander Group. I’m gonna let her tell you a little bit more about who the Alexander group is in just a minute. Leah has an unbelievable background, so not only has she been a business owner and an entrepreneur, she did that for I think 14 years.
[00:00:46] Leah Salinas: Yep.
[00:00:46] Terri Hoffman: I’m gonna let her tell you how she navigated from that to the Alexander group where she is now an executive search expert and works with a variety of B2B industries. Today we’re gonna be [00:01:00] talking about things to think through when you’re building out your sales and marketing organization. She does executive role recruiting outside of that area of operation, so she’s gonna have a lot of great things to say about other areas as well.
[00:01:14] Terri Hoffman: She’s gonna talk about the difference between a sales leader and a sales person. Those are very different roles and you would need to look for different pieces of like personality attributes and skills. She’s gonna talk, elaborate on that. Hopefully she’ll talk a little bit about how she positions and markets herself and like some lessons learned there.
[00:01:34] Terri Hoffman: But lots of exciting things to cover. So welcome to you today. Thanks for joining me on the program.
[00:01:39] Leah Salinas: I’m so excited to do this with you and just thrilled that you even asked me, ’cause this is something I’ve experienced as a salesperson. I’ve done as a sales leader in my own organization and something that I truly, I.
[00:01:54] Leah Salinas: Love to help my clients build out, so thank you. Good. Also, I [00:02:00] should mention every now and then, I think you meet someone at a networking event or in the business world and you’re like, I feel like I’ve known you for a really long time. And that is definitely what happened for me when I met you, I was like, yeah, I feel like we’ve known each other for a lot of years and we just had yeah.
[00:02:13] Leah Salinas: Agree. Agree. And we probably have, we just couldn’t remember it ’cause there’s so many other people we’ve met along the way.
[00:02:19] Terri Hoffman: Maybe that’s it. Yeah. So let’s start with some basics about how you got your career started because you’ve taken a very interesting path, right?
[00:02:28] Leah Salinas: Very unique.
[00:02:28] Terri Hoffman: Why don’t you talk about how you started your business and some of the experiences there, and then how it transitioned into where you are now.
[00:02:35] Leah Salinas: For sure. There’s been quite a bit in the time that I started my business . I graduated high school a year early, so that meant I graduated college a year early.
[00:02:45] Leah Salinas: I was 21, fell in love, got married and had my first child at 22. And at that time, my husband at the time wanted to start college. And so one of us needed to work. We had a child at home [00:03:00] and my undergrad is in art, so oil painting specifically. That does not pay the bills. So I wanted to use my creativity in a way that would generate income for my family.
[00:03:13] Leah Salinas: And at that time, those home parties were really big, women were generating a revenue or income from selling products in people’s homes. And I got into one of those companies. It’s no longer around, but it was a beauty skincare makeup product line. And I started going to people’s homes, started selling that product within a year by the time I was 23, I had 200 consultants underneath me and built out a team. And what’s funny was I won a trip for doing that to Hawaii. I’d never been to Hawaii and my ex-husband had to put his name on a rental car ’cause I was too young to rent the car that I had earned.
[00:03:56] Terri Hoffman: Oh my gosh.
[00:03:57] Leah Salinas: So it, it was fun. I was able to, be a [00:04:00] mom and do that and you have to sell quite a bit in that kind of model to make income. So I’m the daughter of an entrepreneur and I was constantly thinking okay, what else can I do? So I decided to sign up for a bridal show and I went to a bridal show, brought some consultants with me. And they were like, this is fine.
[00:04:21] Leah Salinas: We like this product, but we need to hire artists to come to our event and do our hair and makeup. Okay, I’ll be back. Next show. Six months later I developed a business plan. I opened an LLC, did some training and it was because I have that artistic background, it was something very familiar to me.
[00:04:43] Leah Salinas: And I marketed hair and makeup booking agency that used this product that we were selling to market to brides. And those brides then asked me, okay, this product is nice, but do you airbrush? Luckily I had a smartphone and I [00:05:00] looked up, I’m like, when’s the next airbrush training session?
[00:05:02] Leah Salinas: And it was about a month out. So I signed all of my consultants interested in attending the airbrush makeup training session and we marketed at the show that we were airbrush artists because I knew our next contract wasn’t for about eight months out and we’d be ready.
[00:05:19] Terri Hoffman: Yeah.
[00:05:20] Leah Salinas: That really skyrocketed our company. By the end of two years we were doing about 400 to 500 contracts a year.
[00:05:32] Terri Hoffman: Wow. Okay.
[00:05:33] Leah Salinas: And it was a blend of weddings, professional photography sessions, some media print, television. It just really took off and it was one of those things that’s okay. I don’t know what to do with all this, but we’re just gonna keep going.
[00:05:50] Terri Hoffman: Yeah.
[00:05:50] Leah Salinas: Created a contract, not with an attorney, and then discovered very quickly that a lot of my clients were attorneys and I needed to professionalize everything at the [00:06:00] peak we got to, one year we did about 700 contracts. 80% of our business was in the wedding industry because that’s a year round industry. I had 15 employees working for me. We booked events eight to 10 months out. The deal with that industry is, it’s B2C, so anybody that’s been in the B2C market, you are at mercy of your Yelp reviews, your Google reviews.
[00:06:28] Leah Salinas: We’re dealing with an industry that is a very creative industry, so everybody’s perception can be a little bit different.
[00:06:36] Terri Hoffman: Yeah.
[00:06:37] Leah Salinas: And it’s a highly emotional time for your customer, so most of our contracts were Friday through Sunday, but I was working the office Sunday through Sunday. Yeah. Trying to meet the needs of the clients and it just got wearing, so during that time I had three kids, got divorced, got remarried, had a fourth child, [00:07:00] and I just looked at my life and I was like, I don’t want to be gone all weekend anymore. I’m missing family events, I’m missing just important moments with my children because they were in school and that’s when they had their games and I just wanted to be more present. But then I also, like so many entrepreneurs I was exhausted and I didn’t enjoy the craft anymore.
[00:07:23] Leah Salinas: I didn’t enjoy being artistic. It’s very difficult to provide an artistic offering when you don’t feel creative, when you don’t feel inspired. And I felt I was doing a disservice to my clients at that point and I had this reflection on when I’m an empty nester at about 48 years old. Is this what I want to be doing?
[00:07:49] Leah Salinas: When that phase of my life has ended, what I’m gonna be able to focus a lot of time on a career and is this what I’m gonna wanna be doing? And the absolute answer is no, [00:08:00] absolutely not. I don’t wanna do it anymore. I also did not wanna be in charge. I wanted to be focusing on my family, and I wanted to have those very difficult decisions.
[00:08:11] Leah Salinas: Are we going to how do we budget? So we make payroll every week. How do we deal with this customer issue? Is our, is the fractional marketing team that we have, are they doing a good job or is there more that we can have from them. I was ready to turn that over. But also find a new challenge.
[00:08:28] Leah Salinas: And so it’s very difficult to convince people to hire you when all you’ve ever been is an entrepreneur because rightfully they’re like, can you take orders from somebody that’s making the decisions and you are no longer making the decisions about this? Strategic plan of the company. I knew that I was ready for that.
[00:08:50] Leah Salinas: I knew I was ready for that burden to be lifted off and convincing somebody else to do that or allow me to do that was very difficult. So my network came [00:09:00] through a year after my look for just anybody that would hire me in a B2B sales type role. My network came through and I joined a software company that does master data management and sales to a variety of industries.
[00:09:14] Leah Salinas: And I was their inside sales person. I was 38 years old, 37 sitting alongside. Fresh outta college 22, 23 year olds learning that B2B sales world.
[00:09:27] Terri Hoffman: Okay.
[00:09:27] Leah Salinas: I had an incredible mentor. He changed my life. What I look for in sales leaders is because I had him as a sales leader, and, after that year, just right before Covid hit events happened.
[00:09:42] Leah Salinas: And I met an owner of a new search firm, joined her, worked there for four years, got incredible exposure to all different types of industries and decided about a year ago to join the Alexander group and I’ve been here ever since and just absolutely love search. [00:10:00] Love partnering with clients, love helping them with wins and finding that incredible talent they need to grow their business.
[00:10:07] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. It sounds like you are very observant as a person and you’re, I bet the experience you went through personally also makes you very empathetic and understanding towards like really top candidates and you’re trying to help them. Not just hone in on, have you worked at this type of company, so that tells me you can work at this type of company again.
[00:10:28] Terri Hoffman: It’s looking at harder at the skills and the qualities that really drive that person and how those skills can be transferred. I think it’s so commonly said by business people is you hire for attitude and skill.
[00:10:43] Leah Salinas: Yes.
[00:10:43] Terri Hoffman: And then you teach them the industry. You teach them the things that are trainable.
[00:10:48] Terri Hoffman: It’s very hard to teach somebody how to have passion about something. Like they have to come with that.
[00:10:54] Leah Salinas: Yeah. Transferable skills bring, when you bring somebody into your organization [00:11:00] that has seen something similar or problem solved similar but not exactly in your industry or the exact type of needs that you have, they can bring that outside perspective that people in your industry, if they’ve never worked outside of it, may never have thought of.
[00:11:18] Leah Salinas: And so that fresh perspective, but then also people that can pivot like that can be nimble, and you have to be nimble when you’re in that lower and middle market. When you’re in a high growth phase, you need people that can problem solve and can think outside the box and I’ve problem solved for years.
[00:11:41] Terri Hoffman: Yeah.
[00:11:42] Leah Salinas: I just do it in a different context, this isn’t working. How do we find out what will and pursue that.
[00:11:48] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. So now that we’ve got some good background on you and how you arrived, where you are, I wanna make sure that the listeners understand what you do now and a little bit about [00:12:00] your role and who the Alexander group is.
[00:12:03] Leah Salinas: For sure. So we are a retained search firm and what really sets us apart is we partner with our clients. To help them find those leaders that they need to take their business to the next level. So we are not just resume pushers or, making introductions, but we really have that partnership and that consultancy with our client.
[00:12:28] Leah Salinas: Our firm’s been around for now 41 years, so it was founded by three women. And 41 years ago, women in search, especially at the leadership level, was very uncommon. And their mission was to have a relationship driven business. And what’s so great about the Alexander Group is that we compete with those big firms.
[00:12:50] Leah Salinas: We’ve done incredible roles for some fortune 100 type companies, but we are nimble because we still have the boutique [00:13:00] feel. So within our organizations, just like the large firms, we have people that have specialized in different industries. So if I have a client that maybe I haven’t had a lot of experience in their particular industry, I can go back to the team and there’s gonna be somebody there that we can pull into the search and bring that expertise.
[00:13:20] Terri Hoffman: That’s awesome.
[00:13:21] Leah Salinas: It’s very valuable.
[00:13:22] Terri Hoffman: I really wanna make sure that people listening understand how valuable that is because we’ve worked with a lot of search firms, staffing agencies, and typically people who are in your role with the other coworkers in that role are cutthroat.
[00:13:36] Terri Hoffman: It’s usually you don’t wanna information share because you’re competing against each other. So it’s really nice to hear that is not the culture where you are. Yeah.
[00:13:47] Leah Salinas: So collaborative and when one person wins, everybody wins. But then it also helps me, like we were talking about with those transferable skills.
[00:13:58] Leah Salinas: When I pull in when I bring in a [00:14:00] professional services, a client, we have a lot of different types of professional services clients that we serve. And so I can go to our law firm practice and I can say, this is the type of leader that we’re looking for in past engagements.
[00:14:15] Leah Salinas: Is there something similar that you could direct me? Some, just some top talent that we can pull into this. And it’s helpful for me to serve my client in the best way possible to be able to leverage the experience across the team. And there’s people who are, that have been with our firm for over 20 years, so there’s deep expertise. And for me personally, within the Alexander group, because I’m a former entrepreneur, I really focus on those entrepreneur type roles. That means private equity backed, venture capital backed organizations, or those privately held founder led organizations that need leaders to help them scale. And these are people that [00:15:00] thrive in a lean environment, that know how to move fast, know how to pivot quickly. Very different than if we’re looking for someone in a Fortune 500 company. I relate to that person. It is an area that I understand and that I know so well on a personal basis.
[00:15:17] Leah Salinas: And so those are the types of clients that I typically am working with. Most of my clients are in the industrial energy space. However, I’ve done professional services, hospitality, you name it.
[00:15:32] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a wide range and that’s, I’m sure why you lean on those internal experts.
[00:15:37] Leah Salinas: Absolutely.
[00:15:37] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. I really want to talk about building the sales, particularly the sales or business development function on a team. And maybe even how that ties to the marketing function on that team. But I guess if you were approached by a company who is in that growth mode I bet often you see them moving from [00:16:00] owner being the primary doer, seller to okay, now it’s time to start thinking about how we build out that function. So how do you help them get started and what are some of the key things that you’re guiding them about when they’re reaching that phase?
[00:16:17] Leah Salinas: Sure. What is their why, is there is the reason that they need to bring in the sales leader because they need to grow and they have some pretty large growth goals. If they don’t have a lot of growth goals and they need just somebody to take the weight off of the entrepreneur, then that’s really, if you bring in a sales leader that wants to scale and lead a team, that may be too much for them to bite off at that point.
[00:16:43] Terri Hoffman: Okay.
[00:16:44] Leah Salinas: So sometimes it’s that entrepreneur maybe still wants to be in charge of the sales team, but doesn’t wanna be the number one sales salesperson anymore. So we will help bring them in some of those really strong individual contributors [00:17:00] that this entrepreneur, CEO can trust to pass off some of those client relationships to, and represent them in the market because it is so difficult to pass off something you’ve worked so hard for.
[00:17:15] Leah Salinas: As a leader, as an entrepreneur and let that go and pass it on to somebody. So they need some very strong individual contributors if they’re if they have some strong individual contributors already. And that leadership, the CEO is no longer their number one salesperson or really driving the sales, that’s where you can bring in a sales leader.
[00:17:40] Leah Salinas: If you do it too soon, they’re gonna be twiddling their thumbs and they’re gonna be wanting to grow much faster than maybe there’s an appetite for.
[00:17:48] Terri Hoffman: Okay. Yeah, that make, that makes sense. And I’m to go along with that. There may be other types of systems and ways of operating that company isn’t necessarily prepared for.
[00:17:58] Terri Hoffman: At a really simple [00:18:00] level, it could be something as simple as, do you have a CRM? And on a bigger level it’s can you actually deliver at the volume that might happen, if you sell that.
[00:18:08] Leah Salinas: If what the salesperson has been capable of bringing in, can you even service those clients?
[00:18:15] Leah Salinas: Can you deliver on that? Or is it gonna be a big problem in your sales, in your pipeline, in your supply chain? Because that will discourage a top sales performer if they bring in deals and they’re told that we can’t do that. It’s too much.
[00:18:30] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. So you must have to do almost like a business diagnostic before and I do think going back to how you described how you’re differentiated in the market. I just think that a lot of executives here, oh, search firm, and they immediately think of the resumes and the fees. Maybe you could talk a little bit more about how you help them evaluate like what’s needed, because that’s probably not something you even charge for, but that’s like key [00:19:00] because then you know you’re going and finding the right position, the right people, the right traits.
[00:19:05] Terri Hoffman: So how do you start that process and what are some of the things you’re learning about?
[00:19:10] Leah Salinas: And it’s not only just finding the right person, but if we bring somebody in, are they gonna be set up for success? And are there other things that you need to be doing? To be able to prepare yourself and position yourself to be able to track the type of talent you want and you need to be able to grow. So absolutely. Just like salespeople do qualifying calls, we have to do a qualifying call and it’s not uncommon. I have this not too long ago where somebody said to me, I’m exhausted. I need a salesperson. But there are so many things that needed to happen for me to even go out to the market.
[00:19:49] Leah Salinas: And one of those things is, who is your target client? What customers are you targeting? How are you gathering the information for me [00:20:00] to be able to say, Hey, they have this CRM that when you come in, you can be able to keep track of the leads that you are getting understanding what has worked and what hasn’t in the past because they’ve collected that data and they can share that with you so that you can be successful as a salesperson.
[00:20:18] Leah Salinas: Is there a marketing arm or is there something to partner with a team to partner with this sales person to set them up for success? Because sometimes the salesperson needs to come up with the marketing message. They need to create all of their slide decks, all of their postings on social media.
[00:20:39] Leah Salinas: And that bogs down a good salesperson, right? If they don’t have the right tools and support that they need to be successful, you can put five or 10 of them in there, but you’re not gonna get the results that you need. So the best things that you can do is set up that foundation. Early on to be able to track the talent that you want.
[00:20:59] Leah Salinas: [00:21:00] Now I know that I said sometimes adding the sales leader can be too premature, but good sales leaders can come and help you build out and sophisticate your sales organization so that you can bring on that sales team. And in the lower and middle market, that’s where people that are leaders in that size of companies they love it. They thrive in let’s sophisticated this. It’s messy. Let’s organize it and make it a place where good salespeople wanna work.
[00:21:32] Terri Hoffman: I think you inadvertently listed off some of the qualities that really top modern salesperson is looking for.
[00:21:38] Terri Hoffman: They want those tools and they want strong marketing. I’m sure there are some salespeople who love to walk in and create all of those things, but that will require some ramp up time because they can’t be great out there hunting for new opportunities and building that infrastructure at the same time. And then having high expectations about them building their pipeline and [00:22:00] bringing in deals. Is going to take longer if that’s gonna be required first.
[00:22:05] Leah Salinas: And that is not where they thrive. That’s not their expertise.
[00:22:10] Leah Salinas: That’s what I love about your offering, is that you can bring that in to an organization that can’t have a 10 person marketing team. Maybe they’re not in-house, they’re not able to do that. But they want to grow. And so how do we do that? We need to support these sales teams.
[00:22:27] Leah Salinas: So like you said, get them out in front of customers. Don’t have them sitting behind a computer screen creating digital content so that they can present it to the client. The best advice I ever got as an entrepreneur is outsource what you are not good at. It’s going to cost you money, but it’s costing you more by not doing and being in front of the client, which is why you have success as a business to begin with. What [00:23:00] is your cost? Being in front of the client, what value do you bring monetarily? And I can guarantee you for a fraction of that, you can bring in the experts to do things you shouldn’t be doing ’cause it’s not your expertise. And that really is what helps me grow. And I see that with organizations like yours, companies like yours, the value that you bring.
[00:23:23] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. That’s the way that you’re talking and the way that you’re thinking on behalf of your clients is what a true partnership is. And I’d like to think we operate that way as well, because we’ve had situations where we’ve walked in and there’s no marketing function or marketing department, so we’re helping them build that function and that practice.
[00:23:40] Terri Hoffman: We’re helping the executives learn what questions to ask. What to expect, how to hold marketing accountable, but if it’s going well, the end result should actually be us helping them determine you really need to hire a marketing director or this other role. Maybe it’s two or three roles now that we’ve helped you [00:24:00] get the discipline in place.
[00:24:01] Terri Hoffman: And we can either decide to move on or you can decide that we’ve seen strategically some other areas where our time is better spent. Because then they’re getting the most out of their budget. Over time we’ve had that happen a number of times with clients and it feels sad, but it’s also that’s actually what we’re talking yourself out of a job.
[00:24:20] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. And that’s what we should help them do. And if it goes well enough then we’re really being a partner to them, and we’re just trying to sell them something.
[00:24:28] Leah Salinas: And that’s what’s so great about having the focus that my group does in that lower and middle market is that, these challenges that business leaders have. While the industry may be unique, the challenge often is not very unique and we can leverage our network and say, Hey, this is what we’ve seen in the past that other clients have done to set them up for success [00:25:00] before bringing in a sales leader. And these are the people that they brought in to help them do that, let me make those introductions and while I’d love to close the deal immediately and help them find that person, I know that the longer term success will be for my client is if I help them get to the point where they truly are ready to introduce that talent to their company, to their organization, and I feel so fortunate to be a part of an organization that sees the value in that long-term relationship and saying, we’d love to help you, but the timing’s not right, and I’d rather a win for you instead of just like that contract right now that we have, that I can bring in and fill this leader for you and then onto the next that long-term partnership in is so valuable to my firm and they allow me to say yes, we wanna work for you, but not right now. And here are the reasons why and let me help you get to that point.
[00:25:57] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. And I’m sure you can connect them. I know you have a huge [00:26:00] network you can connect people to the resource they need if there’s something that you think is gonna hold them back I’m really curious too about, I guess the only thing I can think to call it is like onboarding. And so if, let’s say you’ve defined a role for a sales leader, you help them find that great fit, you connect the dots together, how much do you coach your clients on that whole integration and onboarding of that role? Because that’s, it’s great, oh, I found the person, but now what do we do? How do we start?
[00:26:32] Leah Salinas: We partner with our client long after the person is there. We wanna make sure everything going okay. We check in with the executive that we’ve placed to make sure things are going as they expected. Sometimes they’ll divulge they said that they want this, I don’t feel like they’re quite needed quite yet. They’re quite ready yet for that. I can coach back to my client and say, are there things happening without breaching that confidentiality that both the client and the candidate has. [00:27:00] But I will tell you that a true leader, the right sales leader they know how to onboard themselves and they know how to coach up to that CEO of this is, let me take you along this journey. I’ve, and what I often look for and what is really a critical component is that if they’ve never had a sales leader, now is not the time to take a risk on someone that’s never been a sales leader before.
[00:27:32] Leah Salinas: I look for somebody that has helped in the leadership role, scale organizations previously, they found the success and bring them in because they will help the CEO, the entrepreneur, the founder, in what needs to be done in order to set up the sales organization in a sophisticated process. So I look for the leader that could onboard himself instead of me doing it.
[00:27:59] Leah Salinas: And quite frankly, [00:28:00] part of the thing is the emotional intelligence. Do they understand that this is a relationship and are they looking for a relationship with a founder and CEO and they need to understand when to push and when to pull somebody like that because they’re pulling somebody into kind of a newer territory for them into a growth territory bringing in others that they release a lot of control too that can sometimes be uncomfortable for them. And these sales leaders or the C-suite, the executive CFO, COO, whoever it is that we bring in, understands that there’s a dance that needs to happen with that, and they need to have patience and they need to, like I said, know when to push and know when to pull, and know when to say, hey you said you want this is what it’s gonna take to get there. Let’s do it. It’s gonna, give that leader or the founder the confidence that, Hey, I brought you in. I need to trust you. [00:29:00] Let’s go and do it.
[00:29:01] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. That’s awesome. I just think this podcast is about marketing, but the reason I invite people on to talk about things outside of marketing is because I think it’s not always obvious how marketing ties into the rest of the organization and the rest of the company. And the way the sales organization is built and the way that it ties into the rest of the company is the difference between marketing being effective and not being effective. It’s that big of a deal, right?
[00:29:27] Terri Hoffman: That’s not to say what I really dislike is combativeness between marketing and sales. It just derails everything. But yep, the right leader in place with the right team and the right marketing strategy it’s such a difference maker. It enhances the value of that business when it comes to an exit strategy.
[00:29:48] Terri Hoffman: There’s so much data out there that shows that investment is worth it, right? But for marketing to be effective, the right sales organization has to be in place and vice versa. For sales to be effective, the right [00:30:00] marketing strategy needs to be in place as well.
[00:30:02] Leah Salinas: And the really good sales leaders that I speak with, part of one of their first questions to me usually is, tell me about the marketing team.
[00:30:13] Leah Salinas: What do they invest in marketing and who do they have? Because they know to be successful in sales, they need to have that partnership because they can’t. Unless they’re a chief revenue officer that sometimes leads a marketing function and leads a sales function. This type of organization the lower middle market, they need to have that partnership.
[00:30:37] Leah Salinas: Yeah. And if somebody asks me that question, I’m like. Ding ding. You get it. You truly understand what you need to be successful and that it’s beyond you being a good salesperson and that those roles are expecting to partner with marketing to drive sales.
[00:30:59] Terri Hoffman: Oh, [00:31:00] I love it. That’s great. That’s definitely music to my ears because we just see the performance of programs that have both pillars as strong as one another, and when then we see the performance when they’re not, and it’s a big difference.
[00:31:11] Leah Salinas: Huge. So one thing that I was thinking about that I really look for in a good sales leader is data driven salespeople making informed decisions, and that’s where it partners very well with marketing. Because marketing, they can build out a strategy of what they think sales should be doing, what they think their target customer is, or their ideal customer profile, or what industries they need to go after or what the messaging needs to be.
[00:31:46] Leah Salinas: A true sales leader understands that every interaction that they have with prospects and with clients, they are gathering data that supports that strategic plan on how [00:32:00] marketing and sales are going to continue forward into the market, into what their messaging is gonna be. Gathering the data of why is the customer even contacting you or why are they interested in even talking to you?
[00:32:14] Leah Salinas: What are the drivers for them? And then gathering the information on and finding it very important to do so on how many interactions do we have to get to a win? And what are the reasons why people are saying yes, but more importantly, why are they saying no? And why are we losing these deals and spotting those trends and acting early on, but then understanding that while sales is often relationship and a personal interaction, there’s so much data that can be gathered that sales leader truly understands how to organize it in a way that [00:33:00] they can go and then partner with the product team and with the marketing team to give them the information they need so that those teams can help build out a strategy so they all partner together and they can have a better win rate.
[00:33:11] Leah Salinas: The salespeople that understand the importance of data gathering and collection are truly the best sales leaders, but then also help other areas of the organization find their wins and help build out an effective strategy. So marketing, Hey, this is what’s resonating with people. Let’s find more of that. They’re saying they want us because of this. Let’s have our messaging in the market focus on that because we’re gonna find more clients. That it resonates with.
[00:33:41] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, no, you’re right. I love hearing anybody talk about being data driven. That’s actually one of our core values for our employees and our company culture.
[00:33:50] Terri Hoffman: But it reveals a need for a CRM and a system to track that. And as someone who thinks that way and someone who can understand that [00:34:00] information and then figure out how to disseminate it appropriately and I had a previous episode with a guy named Craig Baldwin, and he talked a lot about data hygiene, and like keeping a clean sales pipeline because I think one of the other kind of sins that happens in a sales and marketing organization is like, oh, we have a huge pipeline. But then when you start digging in, it’s no, it’s not really that strong. It’s better to realize this isn’t going anywhere and why, and then figure out should this be somebody we nurture a relationship with, or are they just really not qualified as a client and having that clean pipeline.
[00:34:38] Terri Hoffman: I feel like that’s not everything you’re saying with your comment about being data-driven, but that’s one example.
[00:34:45] Leah Salinas: Oh, it’s a very important example. We have these targets to hit, are we actually on the path to hit those targets? And you can have a lot of deals and then find out they’re junk deals or that historically [00:35:00] the win rate is not very good for deals like that.
[00:35:03] Leah Salinas: And those leaders, really good individual contributors for sales. They’re competitive, they’re driven, they wanna grow. And if they aren’t armed with the direction of the sales leader on, Hey, if you pursue leads in this direction, in this category, if you open up with, I’m gonna solve this problem for you, you’re likely gonna find a win because this data supports that.
[00:35:32] Leah Salinas: So what happens is they’re able to onboard individual contributors much quicker because they have a direction for them. But they also understand that if they don’t do that individual contributors can often just be shooting at the hip, trying to find their next win, and then all of a sudden get burned out because they’re not finding those wins, and then they’re gonna look for someplace else to go that they can have the satisfaction of a close because they weren’t given [00:36:00] the direction to begin with. And so a sales leader being able to communicate that to other teams, marketing and product but also to their sales team and saying, here’s the direction. This is what I want you to do. So that the individual contributors can turn that passion and have it a more focused approach so that they can get their wins.
[00:36:21] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. I wanna make sure that we focused very heavily on sales, your company and you focus on other types of roles on the executive team, so I wanna make sure that you have some time to talk about the variety of positions that you’re capable of like guiding a company on.
[00:36:40] Leah Salinas: We’ve done everything from chief HR Officer, revenue, marketing, operations, even those senior level engineering type positions. It’s more than just executive leadership, but beyond that this is a [00:37:00] very unique role, something that has a unique skillset, and maybe it’s also in a very challenging market to find talent. Maybe it’s a small town, maybe it’s a smaller city, or it’s an area where the local talent pool is not great, and so you need to have that broader search approach, look for a relocation candidate those types of roles as well as your CFO, VP of finance, director of business development chief Operating Officer. Because sometimes at an organization, especially in the middle market, maybe they’re not ready for a CFO, but they need that VP of finance or they need that really strong controller.
[00:37:43] Leah Salinas: So it’s that leadership level and title usually goes along with director, vp, C level, and the like. So across all different parts of the operations of a business, those functions. So I would say outside of sales, [00:38:00] one of the most common thing that we are brought into within the middle market, lower and private equity backed is sophisticating their finance function.
[00:38:09] Leah Salinas: With my business, I had a really good friend from middle school and high school that she ran my books for me. And she did it as a part-time job and she did a fine job. But if I ever wanted to grow, I would’ve needed somebody that really understood, how do we look forward and how do we look back?
[00:38:27] Leah Salinas: And that’s on our, the financial function. And oftentimes my clients are. I’ve had Aunt Betty do my books and she’s been doing a great job, but she doesn’t know how to do those, the forecasting that we need so that everybody can be prepared, and so we need to bring in somebody to sophisticate the finance function.
[00:38:48] Leah Salinas: Those are some pretty important roles to sophisticate an organization.
[00:38:52] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. And actually, believe it or not, that whole function of a company is like my favorite function. Don’t ask me to do it [00:39:00] right, because I’m a marketer. But those are usually in a company we work with that’s like the first area that I wanna get to know better ’cause I wanna understand how they view budgeting for marketing, and I wanna understand how they view the value of it. How it’s valued outside of the sales and marketing team is really important. So I think that role and how it’s evolving, I’m sure you’ve seen those functions evolve and the skills needed a lot over the past, like four to five years especially.
[00:39:30] Terri Hoffman: And the roles needed I guess one, one other question I have for you about it is. Houston’s a huge market where you are. Texas is an even bigger market, but do you do this? Do you provide these services across the country? Oh, globally. Absolutely. Yeah, so we have, I should have mentioned that at the beginning. We have offices in San Francisco. We have a group in LA, we have a group in Austin, Houston, DC and we also have a New York City office. But we’ve done searches, [00:40:00] across the globe and Europe. We’ve got quite a few clients that needed positions in Europe, so there’s so much in the industrial and energy sector here in Houston that just a lot of my clients tend to be in Texas or invest in Texas because it’s kept me busy and I really hadn’t, haven’t needed to go outside of that.
[00:40:22] Terri Hoffman: But we do have, actually, a majority of our clients are not in Houston as a firm as a whole. They’re everywhere. Houston, Texas is just a very business friendly environment too. The amount of growth in businesses who plant themselves there or have a regional office there is pretty significant.
[00:40:40] Leah Salinas: Yes. So we have an office in Houston and is where the main function of our firm is located, but very diverse in the type of clients and locations of where they are.
[00:40:51] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, it sounds like it. That’s pretty exciting. What I guess if somebody is interested in speaking with you, how do they get in touch with you? What’s the [00:41:00] best way to reach you and what would, how, I guess this is a weird question, the way to phrase it maybe, but like, how would somebody know, like I need to reach out to her, how, what are some of the things they might be experiencing that you would say, this is the time to get in touch with me.
[00:41:16] Leah Salinas: For sure. Email, phone call, text, all of those things. I am a salesperson, so I never sleep. I’m constantly looking if a client texts me, calls me, emails me, I’m gonna respond. So whatever mode is more comfortable, I would say, for someone to reach out.
[00:41:34] Leah Salinas: So there’s two buckets of when it’s appropriate to reach out and it is this person is vacated a seat, we need to fill it. We actually wanna upgrade it or have someone with a bigger skillset than what we had before. So they reach out to us, they tell me you kinda, what is the role that you need?
[00:41:55] Leah Salinas: And then we partner with you in building out what does that look like? What have other people done [00:42:00] in the past? Build out the job description. We leverage our database, re-leverage our network. We go and find anybody doing that currently in the market. Retaining us to fill a specific role that’s been vacated or, we realize now we are ready for this new role we don’t know what it looks like.
[00:42:21] Leah Salinas: Reach out to us and we can help you build that profile out as well. One thing that is so valuable that we bring to our clients is because we do so many searches and we have this database, I’ve often helped my clients know, okay, if we’re going to bring in somebody, say a CFO, and we have this kind of revenue range that we are in, and we need somebody that’s familiar with that, what does the market say?
[00:42:49] Leah Salinas: Is a competitive compensation for somebody like that, and we can pull, go into our database and pull the compensation from past searches that were similar and really give you an [00:43:00] idea of what you would need to budget for and what that would look like. Maybe that’s too much to bite off and you’re wanting to be in a, bring in a VP of finance.
[00:43:07] Leah Salinas: We can build that out for you as well. The other component is we know we need to grow. We know we want to grow. We’re ready, partnering with us and having a relationship with us where we can consult you on. Let’s map out what roles you need and which ones make sense for you to bring in first, second, third.
[00:43:32] Leah Salinas: Sometimes it’s bringing them in, together at the same time and helping our clients map that out again, with what compensation to be planning for what the difficulty would be to bring in somebody like that. Maybe it’s a, like a CFO in Houston, in the industrial sector. There’s a great market for that.
[00:43:53] Leah Salinas: So we can say, yeah, sure. 90 days, 60 days, whatever we’ve done in the past. Historically, [00:44:00] we can confidently say that we can close that for you, or this is going to be a very challenging role, you are wanting that in the next, six months from now. Let’s start now building out that framework so we know the difficulty and the time that it may take to bring that person so that when you’re ready we’ve identified that role, so I guess that’s a pretty broad range of buckets, but all of them are appropriate. Yeah. And I welcome anybody that even it’s not a waste of my time to talk to somebody that is curious to know what it would look like to bring somebody in.
[00:44:36] Leah Salinas: Because for us, like I said, the relationship is everything and it’s not about just that one phone call or that one interaction, making sure we close a deal with you, but it’s partnering with you through your growth journey.
[00:44:50] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Wow. That’s amazing. It’s just quality at every step that you’re describing, that you’re trying to bring to the relationship.
[00:44:58] Terri Hoffman: You’re helping them build out their culture in [00:45:00] key positions. And so you’re helping them build a big puzzle that’s pretty intricate. And one person that’s hired that fits the culture could be a different, quadrant on the disc model, for example and now you gotta think about that when you go for the next role.
[00:45:16] Terri Hoffman: There’s a lot to take into consideration and it’s, it just sounds like you put a lot of time and thought into helping them think through, that puzzle making, so to speak.
[00:45:24] Leah Salinas: And it is so valuable when we have that long-term partnership. One impressive component of the Alexander Group is 80% of our clients year over year are repeat clients.
[00:45:37] Leah Salinas: And I’ve had client engagements where I’ve filled over a dozen roles for them. And what has happened is I’ve gotten to know this leadership team, I’ve helped build out this leadership team that I understand where the gaps are, if we bring in this other person, let’s look for them to have this way of thinking or this way of approaching or this way of communicating because [00:46:00] they would work well with the team that’s already in place.
[00:46:03] Leah Salinas: I’ve had a relationship with the client in the past and it would take me not even 30 minutes to talk to somebody that was a possible candidate for his team and say your communication style, it’s a absolute no go. I don’t care that you’re qualified. Your approach to this conversation will derail this team because I’ve gotten to know that leader so well by partnering with him.
[00:46:26] Leah Salinas: And so then what would happen is we have all this knowledge database already built up so we could do closes so quickly for him. But so much of that partnership is making sure that we build out that well-rounded organization. Part of one thing that we do is a personalis assessment, and we’re doing that for a client right now where he knows there’s gaps, but he couldn’t really put a finger on it.
[00:46:55] Leah Salinas: He couldn’t really pinpoint where is the gap? And by doing [00:47:00] this personalis assessment, we’ve been able to identify, so this assessment says, this is how you work well in a team. This is your communication style. This is what happens when you’re under stress and how you behave. This is what you need to have.
[00:47:13] Leah Salinas: This is what you want to have, and this is what you like to have. And we were able to do that with their leadership team and say, this is your gap. You need somebody that enjoys being in the weeds. You have too much of that strategic that nobody knows how to actually execute. So let’s find your execution person.
[00:47:33] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. That’s amazing. It is like making a puzzle to build a successful organization. So having an expert who can come in and do that so that the other people who are already in an executive role or in an implementation role, they can focus on doing that. And you can help guide the way the company gets built out.
[00:47:54] Leah Salinas: And so that those leaders can focus on what they do best instead of trying [00:48:00] to figure out someone’s personality and what makes them tick and are they a good fit for the team. Again, like that is what we do all of the time. And we have that new neutral third party lens, we’re not in the office every day with this person and to have kind of some personal biases against each other. We can see people from that outside lens coming in and say, ah this personality will bode well with this other person. And it frees up those executives to do what they do best. Finance, operations, the strategy that a CEO is so good at instead of breaking down someone’s personality, right?
[00:48:40] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. I think having a neutral party is everything. I think it, it makes a huge difference. We are going to share your contact information in in the show notes.
[00:48:51] Terri Hoffman: The episode when it’s posted on YouTube, we’ll have it in the summary and then also on our website in the show notes so people can get in touch with you. But [00:49:00] this has been an awesome conversation. I’ve learned a lot not only about what your company does, but just about how you view the building of that organization and a company. So that was really helpful. Thank you so much.
[00:49:11] Leah Salinas: You’re welcome.
[00:49:12] Terri Hoffman: Thank you for listening to B2B marketing methods. Please be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast channel and leave us a review. We’d love to hear from you and connect. You can find me on LinkedIn or visit our company website at marketingrefresh.com.
