Episode 25
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Richard Ellis: [00:00:00] According to research from McKinsey, two thirds of executives say their company struggled to turn strategy into action revealing just how difficult it is to connect bold vision with daily execution. Their findings also highlight a common gap between growth ambitions and the leadership mindsets required to achieve them.
Richard Ellis: The most effective leaders, they don't just implement strategy, they shape it, own it, and bring others along. Today, consider some goodness around what growth really demands from sales leaders and the shift from executing a plan to actually creating money.
Richard Ellis: Welcome to some goodness where we engage seasoned business leaders and experts to share practical guidance and tips to help new and future C-level leaders maximize their impact. My guest today is Chris Strammiello, chief Revenue Officer at Lean Solutions Group. Chris brings more than 25 years of experience in sales, marketing and strategic operations, [00:01:00] and is known for building high performance teams and mentoring emerging leaders across global organizations.
Richard Ellis: He's led transformations. Built market first cultures, and most of all, he's passionate about helping others grow. Chris, welcome to the episode.
Chris Strammiello: Hey, thanks, rich. Great to be here with you.
Richard Ellis: So today we're gonna talk a little bit about strategy and execution, but I think we're coming at it from maybe some unique perspectives that I'd love to pick your brain about.
Richard Ellis: You've, you know, held CRO roles in both larger and complex environments and fast. Growing companies, and you've just got a varied background that I think lends to some great insights here. But how does your growth mindset shift, depending on the needs of the business or the particular circumstance you're finding yourself in from strategy and execution?
Richard Ellis: Just at a high level, and we'll kind of get into the details here in a minute.
Chris Strammiello: Yeah. You know, it's an interesting question. I hear growth mindset talked about a lot, maybe with a lot of different definitions, but. You know, I think about [00:02:00] strategy, innovation, and talent, and how are you thinking about the mix of those three kind of capabilities?
Chris Strammiello: And so depending on the job, I'm at a company called Lean Solutions now, which is a fantastic fast-growing services company. Largely serves the transportation and logistics space, but has a mix of technology and services and talent. That's a very different. Growth plan than maybe a previous role in enterprise software and automation.
Chris Strammiello: So to answer your question a roundabout way, I think the first thing you've gotta do when you're thinking about your growth mindset is assess, is it gonna be product driven? Is it gonna be greenfield opportunity driven? Is it gonna be product market fit? Is it gonna be a talent driven approach? What are the key levers to drive growth in your unique circumstance?
Chris Strammiello: Because, you know, growth opportunity abounds. You just gotta figure out what is the Pareto [00:03:00] analysis of your growth opportunity.
Richard Ellis: I think that's so smart. I've really just kind of sitting back and recognizing those nuances and we have the opportunity to serve lots of different companies and different industries, right?
Richard Ellis: Large and small. And so you can see just there's different dynamics and requirements and I could picture a potential leader saying, Hey, I can get passionate around this, but over here I think that's gonna stress me out. Did you ever go through figuring out which kind of growth strategy, characteristics, and dynamics?
Richard Ellis: You like versus, uh, I'm gonna stay away from that going forward.
Chris Strammiello: I certainly know what I like and what I don't like, but sometimes the truth is you gotta let the market opportunity and the circumstance dictate. You know, and I know you are a weightlifter and we've talked a fair bit about fitness and parallels to business in the past, but sometimes the body part you like to train least.
Chris Strammiello: Is the one you really need to train most. And so nobody who knows me [00:04:00] would be surprised that I don't love events or event marketing. It's not my favorite thing, but sometimes it's really essential. And at Lean Solutions, we've had really great outcomes with some of our events. That's just one small example, but whether that is.
Chris Strammiello: For a given sales leader, if you don't love the sales and marketing interaction, if you don't love doing board presentations, whatever it is that you like or don't like, you gotta find a way to deal with that because I. You just gotta serve the need and you gotta serve the growth opportunity above all.
Chris Strammiello: Like it or not. Yeah, you can lean into the things you love, that's great, but you gotta do what you need.
Richard Ellis: Of course, of course. Yeah. I just know that there's a lot of our listeners out there that are charting their career path and trying to make decisions on my next, you know, role is gonna be a C-level role.
Richard Ellis: I'm trying to figure out what the right move is for me, and I think it's important to recognize that all growth [00:05:00] strategies. Are not the same. Right. There are some differences and some will require different things than others. One of the things that you and I have talked about in the past is just the difference between executing a strategy that's given you versus owning the development of a strategy and then executing that.
Richard Ellis: Tell me a little bit about your experience there. 'cause I know you've done both.
Chris Strammiello: Sure. Well, you just said it. You know, if a lot of your listeners are thinking about their career trajectory and their career path, I think the question you just asked is one of the critical dividing lines at the sales executive level.
Chris Strammiello: Now, whether that's a SVP level and a larger company, whether that's a CRO level. But when you get to the top of the sales stack, what you've done, it's not good enough anymore. So just like when you were an individual sales rep and you were demonstrating excellence and crushing your quota and people were showering, love and praise on you, and [00:06:00] eventually they came to you and they wanted you to lead a team well, you learn pretty quickly that the things you made you great as an individual aren't necessarily the things that are gonna make you effective as a manager, and you've gotta adapt.
Chris Strammiello: It's the same thing when you are operating a team with Swiss Watch Precision. As a sales leader, you've got your plan, you've got your territory plan, you understand your customer set, you understand your ICP. You're working all of that, and your team is achieving and overperforming, and they're lauding praise on you as a sales leader.
Chris Strammiello: Well, once you get into that spot where you're no longer. Executing the plan that the company wants you to execute, and you've gotta make it up from whole cloth. You've gotta decide how is it that we're gonna grow, right? It's a very, very different picture, and I think that's a dividing line that a lot of people don't get across.
Chris Strammiello: They maintain that execution excellence, but they don't [00:07:00] have the strategic craft to go out there and build their own plan. To build the growth plan for the company because to do that, you gotta bring a lot of pieces together. You gotta really understand your market. You've gotta understand product market fit.
Chris Strammiello: You've gotta understand where the white space is in your existing segments. You've gotta have the pattern recognition to be able to map your capabilities against unserved market needs. You've gotta know how to structure an organization. You've gotta know how to build the momentum and the push of the broader executive team behind you to enable your goals.
Chris Strammiello: So there's a lot of pieces that come into play that you don't necessarily have to confront when you are managing a market or a sector or a segment, or even the top performing team.
Richard Ellis: It's so good. And you mentioned the [00:08:00] idea of thinking about marketing events or those types of events, not necessarily something you know you love.
Richard Ellis: Right? There's a lot of aspects to how are we gonna grow that might be outside of my experience or my comfort zone, or just what I like to think about. And you gotta stretch yourself to get outside of your box and say, Hey, I need to go lean into the marketing strategy and go to market, and I need to think about strategic partnerships.
Richard Ellis: And do we need to formalize some selling through a channel? Right. There's a lot of dynamics versus if you're just coming from leading a sales team and you got a number you gotta go hit.
Chris Strammiello: That's right. And the truth is, when you get into that spot for the first time, it's gonna be hard to do it yourself.
Chris Strammiello: So having the wisdom of others that you can draw upon, having a group of peers in your C-suite or in your executive team that you can collaborate with, and then trying to be really intentional about identifying. Where might the gaps in your strategy be or your knowledge set be, and then how do you fill [00:09:00] those gaps so that you can create a more holistic growth strategy?
Chris Strammiello: I think that's really important.
Richard Ellis: Yeah. And just a double click on this idea of crafting or owning the development of your own growth strategy. Anything come to mind of. Kind of missteps that you would highlight, Hey, watch out for this. Or just some goodness that maybe you underappreciated at the time, but you look back and say, oh, this was really critical.
Richard Ellis: I'm gonna make sure I focus on that going forward.
Chris Strammiello: Well, I don't think you run a long enough podcasts to do a litany of missteps, but you know, I would tell you mistakes are gonna be made at every step of the way. Any, anytime you have someone that tells you different, it's probably not the cold hard truth.
Chris Strammiello: But I guess I would say that people understand their customers really well, like successful sales leaders, they tend to understand. Their product or service offering really well, and they tend to understand their customer really well. I think not always the broader market, so they might understand the [00:10:00] market where the heart of their customers tend to play, but really focusing on adjacent space I think is one of the most important ways that you start to think more broadly.
Chris Strammiello: Because you know, in a smaller company or your kind of growth strategy 1.0, you're gonna figure out how do you serve your customers with excellence in the area where you're differentiated, in the area where you're finding success. How do I go deeper? But eventually you're gonna have to move to some 2.0 concepts of.
Chris Strammiello: How do I go broader inside those customers? Or how do I find adjacent opportunity that's outside of my current growth vector? And so I think it's really important from the start, you have to win every day. You've gotta be tactical, but to start looking more broadly at what's around you and start thinking about.
Chris Strammiello: Working with your product organization, your service organization, how might we run some smart experiments to fulfill more needs?
Richard Ellis: I like that. And I like the word [00:11:00] adjacency. It's so smart. And part of a growth strategy, right, for just about any business is framing that with the board and aligning on what you are going to do or not gonna do with the board.
Richard Ellis: Tell me a little bit about that dynamics of how do you drive alignment with the board? What level of details do they even want to get into in terms of the growth strategies?
Chris Strammiello: Sure, and I think there's a lot of commonality between like, how do you build consensus with your CEO or C-suite? How do you get the board behind you?
Chris Strammiello: Or how do you drive support from your private equity sponsors? Whatever that type of high level engagement might be, but. I definitely think there are a few elements of that that are quite different from maybe building support in the lower levels or with your senior manager. The first is it's all about the numbers, so let's start with that.
Chris Strammiello: You can have great ideas, you can have great structural concepts, but show me the [00:12:00] numbers. Validate the numbers, show me the proof points, and then back that up with the qualitative. Give me the customer example, give me the customer stories, give me the market analysis, but have that underpin the facts of the case, which are the numbers.
Chris Strammiello: That's always going to be the right approach forward at that level. And then I think you gotta check a few boxes if you're talking about a growth strategy or, or even a focused investment initiative. You gotta show me why it's repeatable. You gotta show me why it's scalable. If you can't do that, I can only get so excited.
Chris Strammiello: So we gotta do that and then give me a balanced view of my upside and risk. So there's nothing that is just a pure opportunity set without any risk associated. So show me a balanced view. Show me that you understand upside and risk. And then within that, show me you have command of the dependencies. So [00:13:00] what does it take to execute, not just within your own world, but sure throughout this company?
Chris Strammiello: What does it take? And if there are many, then show me that you got a change management plan to get there. So, you know, if you can start with the numbers, if you can show me it's repeatable, it's scalable. If you can give me the qualitative proof points, if you can give me risk, reward, and you understand the dependencies, well now you've built a lot of confidence with someone who's going to either free up the funds or give you the green light to go run.
Chris Strammiello: Uh, and I think that matters a lot. Having support and momentum behind you from those leadership structures can make all the difference.
Richard Ellis: That's so good. I could picture kind of your elements there. Just making a checklist. It's like, Hey, do I have all these ingredients before my presentation with the board or before?
Richard Ellis: I feel like my growth strategy is fully fleshed out. Right. So that's really good.
Chris Strammiello: Let me add two more things that I think are important before I forget. One [00:14:00] is have enough runway. That you can make adjustments before finalization, that you can't jam your CEO or the board with an idea that requires immediate action.
Chris Strammiello: Like either foreshadow it, pre-flight it, or have enough runway between when you're driving the decision and when you need to take action, that there's enough time for adjustment. 'cause people will really want that. And then maybe the last proof point is. Show that you have the support of your peers, so show that this has been worked through with the team that has to deliver around you, and I think that's confidence inspiring also.
Richard Ellis: Oh, I like that a lot. So if you're leading sales, you've got your marketing partner in lockstep with you. They believe in the plan and the strategy and the product leader. And so you can kind of cover the table, say, Hey, we've got the plan together. Exactly.
Chris Strammiello: Right. Right. It's not your pitch, it's our pitch.
Chris Strammiello: And that's more powerful.
Richard Ellis: Really good. Well, in laying out, how [00:15:00] do you kind of present that and bring alignment at the board? You did highlight that it's a different ball game than maybe driving alignment with your team below. So let's kind of shift gears into that. So let's say that you've got a new plan.
Richard Ellis: Maybe it's a provocative change for the company or a new direction that's gonna be new or challenging to the team. Let's talk about team alignment and some of those things.
Chris Strammiello: Yeah, I think from there, I mean, hopefully. You would have engaged your team in some level of thought partnership to construct the ultimate plan that you're selling.
Chris Strammiello: So it shouldn't come as a complete new concept out of thin air, but when you're bringing, you know, a fuller concept or change process or new initiative to the team. I think it's the tried and true principles that you've always put forward, which is the case for change. What's in it for them and what's in it for the company.
Chris Strammiello: And a lot of times, I think particularly at the middle level and more junior level, people have a tougher time parsing like, what's good for me and [00:16:00] what's good with the company. And I think you've gotta be able to tie those two things together. And showcase how the executive team is thinking about the growth platform and how that translates down to a lower level if it's just about them.
Chris Strammiello: I think it's hard to stay in line with the North Star. I.
Richard Ellis: That's really good and I like that you highlighted just involving them so it's not a surprise that's thrown at them because you know, we've seen just such goodness in whether you're developing a new message or a new story for the company or a new strategy.
Richard Ellis: If you involve some of those key stakeholders, then they become your change champions. When you're ready to rock and roll, right When you're ready to then go execute and they feel like, okay, this strategy has been created. For us, buy us with us. Right. Not just something that, oh, management thinks they know everything and they're telling me to go left.
Richard Ellis: Exactly right.
Chris Strammiello: Exactly right. That's such a key point that they're a stakeholder in it.
Richard Ellis: Yeah. I'm a big believer in a lot of times the approach that [00:17:00] you take is almost just as important as the in deliverables, and so really thinking about the approach of whatever it is you're creating or doing as much as the end deliverables that you need to get to.
Chris Strammiello: I think that's right and you know, when translating a plan or initiative down to, I think it's important to understand or to think intentionally about what are the questions you wanna then engage your team with, where you can tailor the final 10%. I try to make it a point to never ask a question on an item I'm not prepared to take action on.
Chris Strammiello: I don't wanna ask my team any questions and then ignore their feedback. I only want to ask the questions that are meaningful that allow them to tailor this initiative to their real needs. And I think if you get them bought in in the construction on the front end, and then you really listen and tailor to the questions for rollout that they can have influence on, I think it [00:18:00] really helps with the buy-in end to end.
Richard Ellis: Yeah, so smart, and it just fosters transparency and clarity and trust. If they're used to giving feedback, that goes nowhere. Right? Then it's like, well, I'm gonna just stop giving feedback. Right. Why exactly. Right. Well, we talked about the differences between kind of giving a strategy and developing a strategy, and we really went.
Richard Ellis: Heavy on developing a strategy. 'cause I think there was a lot of insights to share there. But before we run out of time, sometimes we are hired into an organization or we're given a strategy. Right? And so you didn't set it, but you gotta go execute it. Any learnings or just tips on how do you just do that?
Richard Ellis: Well, you haven't created it, you're given it, but you gotta go execute.
Chris Strammiello: Yeah. I guess a couple of things, which is even if you're given a set of directives, ask all the questions. So you get handed a plan, a lot of questions are gonna arise and sometimes people hold back their questions 'cause they think, ah, I just gotta go do this.
Chris Strammiello: It doesn't matter what I say. [00:19:00] It does matter. It matters for your own change management process. So if you're dealing with your CRO and you're getting a plan and you gotta go execute. Well, you have to embrace it, but you have to ask all the questions to allow you to own it, right? And then you've really gotta get in line and own it.
Chris Strammiello: That's the only way you can create accountability with your team. A culture of accountability is so essential in sales, and if your leaders or your sellers view any light. Between you and your CRO, you and your CEO, you and the plan itself, well that's gonna really dramatically lower their accountability, and that's not gonna help you get your outcome.
Chris Strammiello: So ask all your questions and take full ownership after that so your team sees it and feels it and can be accountable.
Richard Ellis: So good. Couldn't agree more. That's a really great point of wisdom because we've all seen it and experienced it [00:20:00] in our careers where we're handed a plan, told to go do something. But I've also seen exactly what you said, which is like, okay, well I'm just gonna go execute.
Richard Ellis: I'm not gonna ask the why's and what about and did you consider? But that's all important to really understand why it's the right plan and to your point to kind of get your head around some of the change requirements. Well, we're out of time. Just flies by. It's crazy. But thank you for your time today.
Richard Ellis: And as you know, we like to wrap up with some extra goodness. And so outside of strategy and execution, anything that you wanna mention that's just brought some goodness into your life?
Chris Strammiello: Yeah, I'll tell you on Richard, you know, we're talking about kind of executive path and moving up. There's gonna come a point when you move up where you're gonna be so busy, whether that's with your job, whether that's with your family, the combination of the two.
Chris Strammiello: There's very little time that is your own. And so I read a book not long ago, it was called Miracle Mourning, and it really resonated with me. It's a guy by the name of Hal Elrod and uh. It basically [00:21:00] talks about the fact that that's the time you can own. And it's really true. Like I wake up very early and not 'cause I love waking up early, but because that's the time that I really own, no one else is awake.
Chris Strammiello: There are no burning escalations that need to be addressed at 6:30 AM or 5:00 AM And so. Since I read that book, I've been getting up earlier. I've been sitting in silence. I've done a little bit of reading in the morning, and then whenever I can, and this is one of the benefits of living in South Florida, I go to the beach and watch the sunrise, put my feet in the sand, put my feet in the water, even if that's at 6:00 AM.
Chris Strammiello: It's hard to have a bad day after that, Richard. Yeah. You have a good cup of coffee, you get your feet in the sand, you watch the sunrise and you go tackle all the escalations and burning fires. It still feels pretty good. Yeah. And so, you know, not everybody lives in Florida, but if you can find a way to own your morning and to [00:22:00] enjoy that peace and that time, I think it sets you up to tackle the day in a much more productive way.
Chris Strammiello: And you know, I learned that from that book and it's been great.
Richard Ellis: Oh, well thanks for sharing. That's so good. I'm gonna have to go pick that up. And my wife's dream is for me to move us somewhere where there's a beach. I love visiting you out there. And we were just in Miami Beach a couple weeks ago with another client and I took her along, right?
Richard Ellis: 'cause we're empty nesters now. And so every morning she did, uh, stroll on the beach. She's like, I want to do this every day. I was like, I'm sorry honey. Can't do that in Dallas, Texas. But, uh, maybe one day.
Chris Strammiello: A long walk.
Richard Ellis: Exactly. Well, thank you again for your time today. It was uh, a pleasure.
Chris Strammiello: Hey, thanks for having me, rich.
Chris Strammiello: Great to be with you.
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