Eric Housh
Hello and welcome to the Fast Slow Motion Podcast, where we teach you how to build a business you love while enjoying your life. My name is Eric Housh. I’ll be hosting today, and we have a very special guest, Fast Slow Motion’s Strategic Client Director, Michael Johnson, MJ. Good to see you today.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
Good to see you. It’s good to be very special.

Eric Housh
And we’ve got a special guest. Steve Heroux is with us. Steve’s the founder of The Sales Collective and author of The Sales Contrarian. At The Sales Collective, Steve and his team work with organizations to improve how they build, enable, and support their sales teams, including recruiting, onboarding, training, and coaching. And in The Sales Contrarian, Steve challenges traditional sales practices and offers a modern perspective on how sales leaders and teams think about performance, leadership, and growth.

So today, we’re going to explore what’s not working in modern sales, why it matters so much to business owners and leaders, and how to build sales organizations that support sustainable growth instead of constant stress. Steve, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Steve Heroux
Thanks, man. Good to see you. Unlike Michael here, who bailed out of our meeting back in December pretending he was sick, at least you showed up. So thanks, man. Appreciate you being there.

Eric Housh
Absolutely.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
Oh man, calling me out. No, I appreciate that.

Steve Heroux
It’s all right. We had to reschedule this because I couldn’t speak for four days. It was maybe something similar to Michael. It’s not good when you’re a speaker and your voice doesn’t work.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s kind of the key function there. So, well, I’m really interested in your brain today, your knowledge, your experience in the sales world. And so I want to start off at a high level. When you talk to founders or you see a company founder or CEO who is frustrated about their sales results, maybe confused a little bit, what do you think is most often misaligned in how sales is being approached?

Steve Heroux
If I had one, I would preferably just hold up a mirror and go, here’s the problem. But usually I don’t have one. So I have to really do some deeper discovery and learning about what’s causing the problem.

One of the events I was at two weeks ago, someone asked, what do you wake up in the morning for? What gets you excited? What’s your purpose and mission? Besides my nonprofit, which I shared with you, helping veterans and teaching a million veterans how to sell, the flip side is ending the abuse of salespeople. If I can do that, I will have done something great.

That is the fundamental flaw in the way most of corporate America operates. When salespeople feel like they’re just a notch on the belt of EBITDA, they’re not going to sell a lot. But hey, keep treating salespeople like inanimate objects and assigning dumb quotas, and that’ll definitely work.

Eric Housh
I love it. You’re singing to the choir over here, Steve, for sure. Let’s talk about The Sales Collective. What were you seeing from founders and exec teams that pushed you to build it?

Steve Heroux
I originally wanted to just be a training company. But there are 50 million sales training companies out there with their “magic” methodologies. What we found was training is third, fourth, or fifth in importance.

Think about football. Teams have playbooks. Coaches don’t just assign how many yards someone should throw based on last year. But we saw companies with no defined sales process, no playbooks, no discovery sequences. Nothing.

So we shifted. Now the main thing we do is build or rebuild sales processes. Without that, how do you even know who to recruit?

Michael Johnson (FSM)
Yeah, I love that. In your book, The Sales Contrarian, you challenge a lot of long-held assumptions. Which beliefs do you see owners holding onto that hurt their growth?

Steve Heroux
Probably the belief that assigning a number will magically produce that number.

Look at the Olympics. Some athletes focus purely on outcomes and crumble under pressure. Others focus on their craft and perform at their best.

Companies are obsessed with arbitrary numbers. A company could hit $499 million on a $500 million goal and call it a failure. That mindset is destroying companies.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
Yeah, that’s powerful.

Steve Heroux
It is. And it comes from childhood. We’re taught to focus on outcomes, not effort or process. That carries into business and sales.

If people focused on doing their best consistently, results would follow. But it’s hard to shift that mindset.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
Right. Focusing on outcomes doesn’t build the right process.

Steve Heroux
Exactly. All successful people follow process. That’s what matters.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
As companies grow, complexity increases. How can leaders simplify?

Steve Heroux
Sales leadership is often the least trained role. Great salespeople get promoted without training. That’s like promoting a flight attendant to pilot.

Without coaching and support, they have no chance. That’s why we now train sales managers.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
What’s the biggest realization from that?

Steve Heroux
The “will to manage.” Some people simply don’t want to lead. And if they don’t, no training will fix that.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
Makes sense. Tell us about SalesDNA.

Steve Heroux
SalesDNA is a predictive assessment tool. Most assessments aren’t valid. SalesDNA actually tracks outcomes and correlates them to results.

Companies using it improve hiring success from about 23% to 72%. It’s not perfect, but it’s much better.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
That’s huge.

Steve Heroux
Exactly. It helps you get it wrong less.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
There are so many tools and frameworks out there. How should leaders decide what matters?

Steve Heroux
It doesn’t matter. Think about golf. Every pro has a different swing. There’s no one “right” way.

Sales is the same. You need process, yes. But people should sell in their own style.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
That’s a great analogy.

Steve Heroux
Exactly. It’s like the We Are the World recording. Each artist sang their part their way. That’s what made it great.

Eric Housh
That speaks to culture too.

Steve Heroux
Yes. Leadership is about helping people realize how good they can be, not showcasing how good you are.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
What’s one assumption leaders should drop?

Steve Heroux
That pressure creates results. It doesn’t. It just cascades down and damages teams.

Leaders need to filter pressure, not pass it on.

Eric Housh
What should they stop doing?

Steve Heroux
Obsessing over goals and forecasts. Instead, focus on daily performance indicators and real activities.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
What should they invest in?

Steve Heroux
Build a custom sales playbook and role-play constantly. That beats goals every time.

Eric Housh
As we wrap, what’s a quote that’s impacted you?

Steve Heroux
“The only way to truly be happy is to be free from outcomes.”

Eric Housh
Amazing. Where can people find you?

Steve Heroux
LinkedIn or thesalescollective.com.

Also, check out themillionveteranmission.org. We’re helping veterans transition into sales careers.

Eric Housh
We’ll include everything in the show notes. Thanks, Steve.

Michael Johnson (FSM)
Thank you.

Steve Heroux
Thanks, everyone.