Lessons from the Front Line: Building a High Performance Sales Team

What does it actually take to build a sales team that doesn't need you?
Nick and Jeni Clift spent over 20 years building DWM Solutions — a managed IT services business they successfully exited in 2022. For the better part of those years, Nick was the business's entire sales engine. Sound familiar?

In this episode, Nick and Jeni join Nicky to share the real story behind their transformation — from an owner-led sales model to a fully autonomous, high-performing team. They talk about the ego, the sabotage, the thermometer on the wall, and the moment they came back from a five-week holiday to find the team had not only hit target — but smashed it.

They cover what actually stopped them from letting go, why great salespeople don't always make great sales leaders, and the surprisingly simple things that made the biggest difference.

If you're the person holding all the deals together in your business, this one's for you.

Connect with Nick and Jeni:
LinkedIn — Jeni Clift | Nick Clift
Website — tenasia.com
Podcast — mspmasteryblog.com

Resources mentioned in this episode:
→ How to Have Tough Conversations — https://youtu.be/yk96ezzzS8Q?si=NtXTUb2vRUgUzNha 
→ Smart Business Growth Audit — nickymiklos.com

Learn more about Nicky  at nickymiklos.com

Grab The Growth Code™ here!

Get your a copy of Healthy Hustle: The New Blueprint to Thrive in Business & Life at www.healthyhustle.com.au

Connect: LinkedIn | Instagram

Contact: 0403 191 404 | hello@nickymiklos.com 

Music by Jules Miklos-Woodley

Transcript

Smart Business Growth Podcast — Episode 23

Transcript: Nick & Jeni Clift — From Owner-Led Sales to Autonomous Team Performance

Nicky Miklós  (00:00)

Hello, hello and welcome to this week's episode. Now, last week on the podcast, I unpacked the three levers that every business needs for sustainable, smart business growth, commercial leadership, streamlined methodologies and rhythms for momentum. So if you haven't listened to that yet, make sure you go back and check out that one.

But for today's episode, and the reason that I bring this up is that we are actually going to be bringing this framework to life. I am so excited to be chatting with Nick and Jenny Clift.

Now they are the co-founders of DWM Solutions, which are managed IT services that they built over 20 years, 20, 25 years, and they successfully exited in 2022. And so when I talk about bringing these three levers, this framework, for smart business growth to life, that is exactly what Nick and Jenny did over that time in their first business.

I worked with Nick and Jenny for four years and Nick had spent the better part of 15 years as the business's key salesperson. Jenny was right there beside him as the co-founder, keeping the wheels turning. And together, they actually made a decision that changed everything. To build an autonomous sales team, to create that culture of accountability and nurture commercial leadership within the business.

What followed was absolutely a masterclass in all three levers. They built a sales culture with true accountability. They created methodologies that the team could easily follow and they established a consistent rhythm.

They did quarterly immersion events, weekly coaching that didn't depend on Nick being personally involved in every single deal to get it across the line. And they knew that they were getting it right when the team hit their Q4 targets while Nick and Jenny were away on a five week overseas holiday. They then raised the bar and increased the targets by another 100K. And guess what? The team hit it again.

Nick is an MSP coach and mentor, Jenny is a certified EOS implementer.

I'm absolutely grateful to be able to call them clients, collaborators, friends, and I hope that you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.

Nicky Miklós  (02:23)

Nick and Jeni, thank you so much for joining me today and welcome to the Smart Business Growth podcast. I want to dive straight in because you both work really closely with business owners and SMBs right now. And I'm really curious about what are you noticing at the moment? You know, the world feels pretty noisy right now economically, politically, all of it. We're in information overload. How is that landing for the people that you're working with? And what do you think smart business growth even looks like in this current environment? Is there anything you're noticing in terms of conversations you're having, patterns that you're seeing? I'm going to leave it open to whoever wants to jump into this question first. If you're immediately like, me, me, me, I've got, I've got the answer to this one.

Who's it gonna be?

Nick Clift  (03:12)

Okay. What I think, I think you're right, Nicky, there's a lot of noise out there. And what I'm seeing is people, especially around the hype with AI and all that kind of stuff — we just had another podcast this morning and we're talking about AI and it's not artificial intelligence. It's exceptionally good pattern matching. That's all the tools do. So if you feed enough data you're going to get a good pattern. So people are kind of panicking and thinking, my God.

Yeah, I need to do this. My competitors are doing this. My customers are doing this. I need to get in front of it. I need to know more about it. I need to implement it myself. All those things are true. You do need to be using it, but it's not the end of the world. It's not going to be replacing humans. It's going to be freeing up the boring mundane research work and reading a thousand tickets and trying to figure out the matching patterns. So I think there's a lot of kind of activity around that.

And people are trying to find their niche, their purpose to help their clients in this information overload, as you said. And that's where the AI tools can absolutely help with information overload. You can feed all the information in and get a succinct summary back out based on what your needs are. And you train the models over time. So that's what I'm seeing as far as business growth goes. There are opportunities to help other businesses use these tools in their businesses. In our industry, managed services, we're looking after IT for clients and they have the opportunity to help their clients use AI to give them a competitive advantage. So it's kind of an interesting thing.

Overall economically, I'd say it's pretty positive. It's not buoyant, but I'm not hearing negative connotations — like, no one's got any money to spend, or we're worried about the political situation in the Middle East. I don't think Australia gives a shit about that, to be honest. We've effectively disassociated ourselves. I think we, as a country, Australia, even though we don't live there anymore full time, it's still pretty independent and I think it's pretty buoyant at the moment. There are opportunities out there. You just got to go to where the noise is and filter it out.

Nicky Miklós  (05:37)

Yes. So what I'm also hearing in that is, particularly with the AI or economically, politically, all these different things that we're dealing with — just pause for a moment. Don't get caught up in the narrative of speed, got to be so quick, or fear. Pause and look at actually how can these tools — when we're talking about AI — how can we be smart about it? You know, when we talk about smart business growth, it's actually not being reactive. It's not following unnecessary trends, as an example, but pausing and looking at: a) how can this tool help support me? b) how is this political global environment, whatever it is, truly affecting me? And then with a kind of a rational calm mind to look at how do I set myself up to move through the curve ball or find the opportunity in that? Yeah.

Nick Clift  (06:28)

Smart people would be selling solar panels and batteries right now. So when the next oil crisis happens you can charge your electric car, you know.

Nicky Miklós  (06:31)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All of a sudden Tesla became popular again. Geez, that's been a journey of brand. That's a whole other podcast episode. Jeni, what would you have to add to that in terms of, you know, real time conversations that you're having with clients about their fears, concerns, what they're positive, optimistic about?

Jeni Clift  (06:52)

A lot of our clients are in the IT managed services space — that's our background, not all of them. And to completely agree with Nick, there doesn't seem to be too much sort of fear or even caution to that extent. What I did hear — one of our guests on our podcast a couple of weeks ago referred to or recommended that you think of AI and the tools as the enthusiastic intern.

And it's because you do have to teach it. You can't just throw AI in and let it go. There's been some pretty good stories about people trying that and how that ended up. So I think the opportunity now is to really take a lot of that mundane legwork, as Nick said, the research, that sort of thing, out — and do things that we've just never really been able to before.

We've been using some of the AI tools and I'm definitely an absolute whiz when it comes to technology, aren't I Nick?

Nick Clift  (07:59)

You're an enthusiastic intern.

Jeni Clift  (08:01)

So I think it's given us the opportunity to do more than we have been able to before and a lot quicker. And I think that's where the opportunity for a lot of businesses lies — is how can we do what we're doing, do it better, do it faster and add more value to our clients.

Nicky Miklós  (08:20)

Yeah, I love that. The term that I used is not enthusiastic, although I like that, but it's the hungover intern. So you've got to double check, triple check — they are enthusiastic, but maybe their attention to detail isn't really on point. And I think what this is a reminder of is that these tools are here to support and create efficiencies.

I often talk about how the sales role has changed — it's that we're no longer information givers about product or services. It's no longer about features and benefits. It's actually about where our role is to help facilitate decisions, help our prospects and clients feel good about the decision that they're making to work with you or to not work with you. It's being that safe pair of hands. It's being able to help them cut through the noise with this information overload. And the reality is we live in a very complex world in many different ways.

And I shared in the intro a little bit about the transformation that you had with your previous business DWM, which I had the absolute pleasure and honour of working with you and the team for — I think it was four years, which was amazing. And really thinking about that transformation and those results, really focusing on creating that autonomous high performing sales team so that you both could step back. Nick, you were the key salesperson for I think the better part of 15 years, and really being able to step back, go on holidays and the team smashed their target and that autonomous high performing culture maintains — as well as really investing in your leadership, whether it's your leadership, but bringing up leaders within the business so they can then help support and run the team and embedding a lot of the rhythms.

So I would love to dig in because I know that a lot of the listeners and people that are watching this on YouTube are probably in a similar position. Some of them are definitely in a similar position to where you were in terms of being the business owner hands on, knee deep in the deals, the sales, or even as a sales leader getting too involved in converting the deals and the sales process. So Nick, I'd really love to ask you — what was that moment? What was the real clincher that made you realize the business growth or the business success will kind of almost plateau if you stayed the main salesperson? Was it a conversation, a holiday? What was it for you that made you go, something needs to change?

Nick Clift  (10:59)

Yeah, it's a really good question. And reflecting on that — I think it was after 15 years of being the owner led sales, which we all start, right. And I was driving to maybe Horsham, somewhere like that, like a three or four hour drive. And I thought, why am I still doing this?

After 15 years, right. I love the meeting with the client. I love that discussion and all that kind of stuff, but I don't love the driving out there all the time and doing the same, same, same. And I think it was one of those thousand trips I did out in the country over the years that I thought, there's got to be a better way here. I can't go everywhere. I can't do everything. Some opportunities came up five hours in the other direction — I can't be in two places at once.

I tried chartering planes. That was not cost effective. That's kind of the decision process for me — I can't. It wasn't a wake up one morning, I hate my job. It was definitely not that. I love the clients. I love what we did. I love the process. I just couldn't be everywhere at once. And that was definitely a limiting factor. And if you're doing that burn where you are doing everything — you're making the appointments, you're going, even though they're existing clients — I never did any cold calling at all. I never did any marketing. I didn't, before I met Nicky here, do any strategy on sales as such. I just looked after my clients. I was a classic farmer. Opportunities came, I got a phone call — a friend of mine's got a problem, can you help them out? I was good at that. I'd go in there, I'd be good at the consultative approach, really showed empathy, understood what their problem was, knew how to solve the problem within the first five minutes. Then it was figuring out how do I take them on the journey, convince their boss or the board or whoever needs to spend this money to solve this problem. Figuring out what the problem was, figuring out how to solve it was not an issue for me. That came very naturally, still does, but I couldn't be everywhere at once.

So that was the kind of challenge where I said, I can't do this. And then we moved from the country to Melbourne. And then that's where it really became an issue, because getting back out to see those rural clients was just not going to happen for me. So that's where we started looking at someone like — and we found yourself — to help us build that team up.

Nicky Miklós  (13:25)

Yeah. Because also you've got all the other hats that you're wearing as a business owner as well. What do you think are the things that almost stopped you? Like, what would have stopped you from letting go of the reins? Because it's a journey — you know, it's easy to say I can't be at all places, I can't do all the things, just because I can do this, this is a skill and I enjoy it. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing for me to keep doing it. And so many business owners, and you went on your own journey around this as well, unintentionally become the bottleneck. Because theoretically, we know that this is a good move for whatever reason, but the reality of actually stepping back and handing over and having someone else do what you've done for decades or for a really long time — what was the thing, or what were the things, that potentially would have stopped you from actually going through with taking a step back and building that autonomous team?

Nick Clift  (14:25)

Well, they weren't hypothetical. They were real blockers.

Jeni Clift  (14:31)

What do we say, Nick? Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Nicky Miklós  (14:39)

Exactly. That's it. That's it.

Nick Clift  (14:39)

And I think a big part of it in the early days was — all successful salespeople have ego, right. And it's saying, well, someone else is going to be doing it as good as me. And even though we know it's the right thing to do and we know that we should do it, you can't help yourself — part of you loves the hunt and the chase and the win, right. That's just building to sell natural salespeople. That's why we do it. We love helping people. We don't want to burn people on the way through, but that thrill of actually seeing that smile on a person's face when they've agreed to do it, you implemented and actually solved the problem, and they're so happy — like there's not a lot of places you can get that feeling. Winning a car race is the same type of feeling, right. It's a winning feeling. That dopamine, or whatever it is, that thing you get when you win.

So giving that up is bloody tough, especially if you're a kind of driven person that needs to have that kind of thing in your life that shows you you're winning. So you've got to replace that with something else. You can't just go cold turkey. I tried it and what it became was sabotage, right. I would say, you can do the sales, and then I would — a customer would ring me and I'd keep this one to myself because that's a big one. I'll come in on my shiny horse and save the day at the end of the quarter or the end of the month.

And one of the things we discovered on this journey, and I've since learned from a lot of other people, is that because you're a good salesperson doesn't make you a good sales leader. And in fact, the sales manager should not have a financial target at all. Their job should be to build the team that is successful, not — and I was the sales manager with a sales target, and having salespeople working with me. And it's just really tough to let a deal go to someone else where you think, look, they've got a 75% chance of closing this deal. I've got a 95% chance of closing this deal. I'm not going to take that 20% risk. And subconsciously you keep it to yourself. And when we all — in hindsight — know it's not the right thing to do, because you've got to teach your people to fish.

Yeah, those were blockers that happened to me for probably two years during that journey. And eventually we finally cracked it. Cracked the code — not crack the shits. So for the people listening out there, if you are the breadwinner sales leader and you need to change that for whatever reason, there are a couple of things you've got to do. You've got to be comfortable that there's somebody else in the business that can do that to keep the business going. And you've got to know what you're going to do. What's going to give you your buzz to keep going in a different role potentially? Because if you don't have that — what's next for you — I don't think you'll ever subconsciously let go of it.

Nicky Miklós  (17:54)

Yeah, because we have to replace those behaviours, don't we, with something else. And there's so much in what you talked about, even around the conscious and subconscious things that are driving the behaviour. And it's hard to let go of something when it's your business. Your example is that there's 20% more chance that you will close this deal. But it's such a short term view, because again, then you can't have that holiday for a month like you guys did and have your time. Even remembering why you're doing it is so important.

And I'm really curious, Jeni, you know, from your point of view — because obviously you both co-founded the business, you're there making sure the wheels keep turning in all these other ways. You built this amazing business together. As Nick started to really truly step back and realised, actually these are the things I need to work on to truly let go and empower the team — what did you notice first? And I'm curious, from a team point of view, or was it in the business, or even Nick himself — what shifted that you saw and that you felt?

Jeni Clift  (19:11)

I know Nick had a few conversations with others around them being through that journey as well. We're members of Entrepreneurs' Organisation, so I know he spoke to some other members about transitioning from that 'I am the sales machine for the business' to 'I'm part of a team' or stepping out of it altogether. So I think there was that — talking to people who've been there and done that and how they did that.

It was a bit of, as he said about, changing that focus from him to others. How can I — because one thing Nick loves to do is help. And I think this is something that as coaches we helped Nick through — you don't have to be the one who always wins to meet that need. You can help others to win and it actually feels better, I think.

Kind of coaching and helping people through that process of, you know, there's more than one way to do this. Once we started to, as a leadership team, see some of those real wins — and I think one of the best feelings for me was I went into Nick one day and I said, who's this client? And he said, I don't know. The team had brought in this whole new client and we didn't even know anything about it.

So once you start to loosen the reins and people do start to have some wins, it just gives you that confidence and refocusing — taking it off me and starting to really spend that time and energy on the team and helping them win.

Nicky Miklós  (20:56)

So it's almost like you create this beast of its own and it starts to take over and it's the evolution. And to Nick's point as well, for both of you even, that sense of, my gosh, this is happening without me, yay. And that can bring up some other feelings of, we're not needed anymore. What? This is my baby, how am I — whatever it might be, all of those things. So I would say full credit to you both because you were on the journey, you were on the process, you were aware of these internal or subconscious things, or you had people around you to help highlight it. Sometimes we're not aware of these things.

Jeni Clift  (21:08)

And terrifying. Oh God.

Yeah, I remember coming back from holidays and I think we'd been away for five weeks and we came back and sort of walked into the office like we're here — and everybody went, you're back, how was your holiday, goodo — and then just continued on working. And part of us was like, oh my God, this — like they don't need us. And the other part was, they don't need us. Yeah, there was just that real mix of some elation and some absolute rejection, and having to come to terms with that. So there are so many moments that happen through this process and it is a real journey.

Nicky Miklós  (21:55)

Yeah, absolutely. And I would say full credit to you both because you were on the journey, you were on the process, you were aware of these internal or subconscious things, or you had people around you to help highlight it. Sometimes we're not aware of these things. So the structure that you really kind of landed on and the people that you had around you, I think were incredible.

And really, if we kind of break it down, I think there's the sales leadership component that you really invested in getting right — from yourselves, but also getting people into the right roles within the business. There was the sales capabilities, the sales skills, and then there was the rhythm. Like, we did our quarterly sales fest, we did weekly, fortnightly coaching, quarterly reviews. The rhythm was so consistent and you really committed to that.

When you think about sales leadership, that accountability culture, the coaching culture and performance management — when you think about investing in the sales development of the team and the rhythm — what do you think is, Nick — just jump to you again now — what do you think out of those three components, is there an easy starting point? Is there one that is more important than the other when it comes to creating this transformation?

Because what I think is really cool about your experience is that there's a clear transformation from and to, and you ended up selling the business and being really successful in creating that ideal state that you wanted. So if we think about leadership, sales capability, rhythms — what are your thoughts in terms of what's the most fundamental key or what's the starting point?

Nick Clift  (23:34)

The only reason I'm laughing is because now I can hear Jeni's dog snoring in the background.

Nicky Miklós  (23:38)

I love that. I thought it was a car or something. That's cute.

Jeni Clift  (23:41)

Yes — and welcome to the podcast. Which one have we got here? We have Rocket snoring away under my feet. It's not me.

Nick Clift  (23:55)

I think overall, the secret to it was having a culture of openness and trust, because we worked really hard on that. And when it came time to transition roles and people around and try different things, everybody knew — I can try this, if it doesn't work, I can go back. And we also had coaching in place, and training programs and all of the stuff. So it was a really safe place for people to try and have a go. That, I think, was the number one thing.

The second part of it is — most owner led sales, like we were — if someone asked me, what's your process, I'd go, I don't know, I just go there and it just happens. So documenting your client journey would be the second most important thing. So it's still nothing about actual selling. This is all about the people and then the process and how you want the experience for your clients to be. That will be the second thing.

And then the third thing is obviously having a program of defining what the roles are, who's going to be doing what, getting that accountability straight. Because when the accountability is all with one person, nothing is documented, it's all random — yeah, I just do what I need to do. You know, I'm on a phone call negotiating a price with a vendor, I'm talking to the client scheduling the project. All those things need to be offloaded to other team members. So for that to happen effectively, we need to know what we want to have happen and they need to have the skills to do it. And even simple things like introducing your sales admin people to the right contacts at the vendors — you can't just hand it off and say, you deal with Dell.

But they're kind of the three major things, I think. And then that actual process of transitioning — we do it, we teach you, we do it with you, then we watch you do it. You can't just in the early days write a document out that only made sense to me, throw it over the fence and say, good luck with that. That's just setting people up for failure. You've got to have a culture that supports people.

Nicky Miklós  (26:09)

Yes. Yeah, it's really interlinked, isn't it. And what this reminds me of is this metaphor that I see a lot — the cowboy culture. I think we've talked about this. When you're first setting up your business, it's kind of like those old westerns that we watch — the cowboys come to town and they can do anything because there's no rules. And you are going to do anything to get the job done. Like, it doesn't matter, you'll negotiate your rights, you'll change up the process — great.

But when you get to a certain level in business, we actually need a bit more structure and we need a bit more streamlined methodology. Because all of a sudden, what happens is that results are relying on a few high performers — and that might be the owner led salesperson as well. So the sheriff has to come to town and put some rules in place, but not take out the personality. You know, it's just the bones, it's the structure. Because otherwise you've got too many people going off in too many different directions and not understanding or knowing what the other person is thinking or what you as the senior leader or the business owner are thinking.

So I think it's a really important point — documenting is great, but that's not job done. It's actually how do we create some kind of a playbook and engage people in that process so they're actually using it, excited about it and can align with it as well. Jeni, is there anything else that you would add to that?

Jeni Clift  (27:41)

There were a couple of really simple things that we did that were, I think, just absolute game changers. Like, super, super simple things. Back in the olden days when we had an office and most people came to the office, we had — if you remember the office in Moonee Ponds — we started with the giant Post-it notes and discovered that one of our, actually our sales admin guy was very, very talented, very creative with drawing.

So we said to him, can you do like the old fashioned thermometer of our target, which was a hundred thousand sales a month. So he just did that. And then as the month went on, they went through and coloured it in. And for the first time in about three years, they actually hit target.

And then — it was September in Melbourne, so he did the Grand Final as a football ground. And then he won — I went to a vendor event and won a trip to Paris, so it was the Eiffel Tower. So each month he did something. There were koalas and kangaroos and you name it. He could draw these things. We had three years where they didn't miss a single month's target because we kept all of those up on the walls and they didn't want this month to be the one that they didn't hit target.

So such a simple thing. And I actually contacted him a while back and said, you got some photos of those? And he sent them through to me. So such a simple thing, but just putting those visuals, making it more about the team than individuals. And this is something you worked with us on — really making sure the sales team was a team.

And the other thing was our sales manager, and it was actually our son Oscar. And he was just a cheerleader. He's not a natural, you know, hustle sales guy. He's more that sort of nurturer. But him in that role of sales manager, where he was cheerleading everybody and helping the team to hit those targets, was outstanding. So I think those two things really helped.

Nicky Miklós  (29:38)

I love that. Because the visual — you know what, we can't underestimate a good old school hand drawn thermometer or whatever it might be on the wall. Like that takes me back to my OG days in sales. And there's something about that visual. Now we might not be in offices in the same way — some of us might be, some of us aren't — but there are other ways. I think a really good strategy is to look at what are the things that have worked over our last 20 years in business and in sales. What are the things that have actually helped create those results? And then how do we modernise it for 2026? We're crazy if we just reinvent things all the time. The classics are the classics for a reason.

And I love as well what you talked about with Oscar, because to Nick's point — just because you're a great salesperson doesn't mean that you're gonna be a great sales leader. And we've got to find how we're supporting and developing ourselves as leaders, which in my opinion is the linchpin. It is the thing that holds everything together. If you've got strong leadership, they're creating a great culture, they're great at coaching their team and holding to performance standards — that's when you truly can accelerate your results. And that's what you're talking about here as well.

If you could go back and tell yourselves one thing before you started this whole transformation — and I know we're going back in time a little bit now — if you could go back and tell yourself one thing, what would that be? Nick, I'll start with you.

Nick Clift  (31:36)

Get over yourself. You know, it's — you're not that important. Like, you are important to the customers and to the staff, but you're not irreplaceable. No one is irreplaceable. And I think we do a lot of stuff out of obligation and from a good place. And especially if you're the founder of a company, your owner led sales, and you feel the pressure that every dollar of revenue falls on your shoulders.

You need to figure out a way to let that feeling go, because that is what's holding you back. And one of my business mentors at the time said, Nick, don't stress about losing 10% of your customers. He said, it's not going to happen. And he was a hundred percent right — in 25 years of running our MSP, we never lost 10% of our customers. We did lose 50% one year. That was one customer. Yeah. But that's another story. Don't have a whale customer. We nailed it.

I'm a high achiever, I'm a high performer. But I took so much pressure on myself and — that obligation that everything had to be me, because I had to make sure this stuff happened. I wish I had learned that it's okay. The world's not going to end if you have a bad day. And for those people out there that feel that pressure — just get sick for three days and see what happens when you actually physically can't get out of bed and you can't talk because you've got laryngitis or something. The world didn't end.

We have a story about one of our sons that was ill when he was a baby and we were literally at the Royal Children's Hospital for a week and I had no phone on me, nothing. When I finally got back into signal, there were 20 messages and five from one client. And when I spoke to him — or somebody else did — they explained the situation. Don't worry about it, it's not important. Yeah. Nothing's that important. But we make ourselves feel like there's this need to respond and get stuff done and do it all ourselves. I wish I had learned that a long time ago.

Nicky Miklós  (33:55)

Yeah. It's so true. And if your client responded in a different way, then that again is maybe a bigger conversation around — are you working with the right types of clients? Because we get to, as business owners, also create and design our business. And we do, when we get to a certain point in business, get to choose who we work with. And also to that point — when we build the teams and focus on handing over and doing all the things that you've talked about, then you can have that week off without any concern. You can have that sick time, or even better, can proactively take time off to enjoy life. And it doesn't have to then be this concern and big stressful thing in our lives. So I love that.

Nick Clift  (34:53)

Yeah, it's like when you feel overwhelmed, what you need to do is go to the gym or go for a walk or go do something different and get out of that funk of where you are. And when you come back and have a break, you go, okay, it's not that bad. What are the actual two things I need to do today?

Nicky Miklós  (35:07)

Yeah, it's so true — if we can have that circuit breaker. Because when we're stuck in it, it's way harder to have that perspective. And say that for sure. Or have good people around you to tell you some truths. And so if you don't have those people around you, the three of us are here to tell you, to give you that hard truth now — you're not as important as you think you might be. Jeni, what about you?

Jeni Clift  (35:37)

Put your hand in a bucket of water and take it out and see how long it takes to fill over where you went. I think kind of backing up a little bit on what Nick said and not trying to do everything yourself.

We didn't do any marketing pretty much through the entirety of our business. Nick was always the salesperson. We had a couple of not very successful attempts at bringing in salespeople that didn't have the infrastructure around them for them to work. When we decided that this needed to change — we met with you, we met with a couple of other people — but we knew that however many years into the business it was — would have been what, 15 years into our business, Nick, when we started working with you, Nicky, maybe longer — we had to do something different.

And for us, that was bring somebody in who had the skills and could teach us how to do it differently, because we didn't know how to do it. But we knew that what we'd done that far wasn't — it got us there, but it wasn't going to get us to where we wanted to be. And it's the old adage — you know, the number one tennis player doesn't do it on his own. He's got all the coaches for everything, he or she. And so I think bringing expertise in to teach you how to do things differently, or to help you through changing the way that you're doing things in the business — it took us a long time to get there, probably too long.

Nicky Miklós  (37:12)

So a really great point around — it's okay if you don't have all the answers. It's okay if you don't know. It's okay if you're not the expert. And basically, there's a common theme of what you both answered around there's a humility around it. A humility to go, it's okay if I'm not as needed in my business as I think I am. And it's okay if I don't actually have all the answers.

And let's be honest, there's a certain gusto that it takes to get your business to where it is, to get that 15 years in. So all of a sudden to be able to go, it's okay for me to step back — and sometimes it can feel vulnerable, right? Like that's a big thing. But we've had to be that person, we've had to do all of the things to get to where we are. And to your point, Jeni, absolutely — what got us here will not be the thing that gets us to our next growth point, our growth set point.

You mentioned about you had a couple of suboptimal experiences hiring salespeople. And you did mention briefly infrastructure was missing. So it was a very different experience to after the transformation. But what just — let's talk about that for a quick moment — what do you think were the key distinguishing factors that made those experiences suboptimal versus when you actually nailed it and you've got some really good people in the business?

Jeni Clift  (38:36)

I think just completely wrong expectations — that we're going to employ this person and they're going to completely transform the business. Like it doesn't happen. You know, hire a BDM and somehow they're going to generate leads, turn those leads into dollars in the bank. And it didn't happen, surprisingly.

We had no marketing. We had no leads coming in. One person that comes to mind was with us maybe 12 or 18 months, went through all of their contacts list basically from their previous role, which was in an aligned industry to ours. But then he didn't have anything else. So we parted ways — and it was very amicable — but it didn't become a long-term successful outcome.

Hiring somebody and really not having those processes, that structure — even down to: what am I selling? I don't know the stuff that we do. Okay, well, that's not really helpful. Could you be a little bit more specific? How much does it cost? Well, I don't know. Just, you know, figure it out. So just this whole, you know, throw mud at a wall and hope some sticks — I think in hindsight was pretty much where we were at. And so not setting up a system and a process for people to actually succeed, I think, is where we really went wrong. And we hired good people, but we just didn't have the business in a place where it was right.

Nicky Miklós  (40:14)

Yeah, so like the foundational elements to help set them up for success. Nick, any other thoughts on that?

Nick Clift  (40:24)

Yeah, you have to be very, very clear with people you bring into the sales team as to what their role is. And they need to be mature enough to ask the questions about the infrastructure and resources that the business has. It's all well and good for two senior people to go have a coffee — yeah, I like you, I know this guy and I know that guy, we've got mutual clients and this could really work — which is exactly what happened. But he didn't ask the question: what's the playbook? What are the products? We said, you just know people in the industry that we want to target — let's just do that. And that was the big challenge.

Some BDMs are happy to do their own appointment setting — they're kind of this multi-unicorn account manager, BDM slash business development rep all in one. And that's typically what an owner led salesperson is, because you have to be. You have the passion for your business, you know what you can do, you can think on your feet, you have the authority to talk to clients. But getting that in somebody else just doesn't happen. You have to have the structure and infrastructure around them — even simple things like what's your service agreement contract. We signed the client's contract because most of our clients were government. So they gave us a contract. We don't have one to give a client. Okay, well, how do I sell it then? Well, I don't know. Just get the meeting and I'll sell it. No problem.

And that's not success. That's not how to do it. Don't do it that way.

Nicky Miklós  (42:13)

Just hand it back over to me and I'll close that deal, because I don't want to let go of it anyway. Yeah. You also brought up a great point — rarely are the people in your business, not always, but rarely are they as passionate or driven as you are as the business owner. You started this business for a reason. So we've got to find — well, what are the other reasons that they might be, you know, as driven, determined, and what is their purpose in the business, which might be different to your perspective. So even as simple as making sure that your team are aligned in that way — are they aligned and engaged in the purpose, with realistic expectations — because they're probably not going to be as invested in it as you are. And that's okay.

But what are they invested in, and what is that internal driver for each of them? Which is, for sure, something that we really focused on with the salespeople, the leaders — around, well, what is their driver? You know, for example, it's never about commission. A lot of salespeople are driven by money, but it's not about the money. It's about what that money is actually going to give them. So instead of 'you're driving towards this commission' — okay, what are you gonna do with your commission? Is it a trip? Great, let's get a picture of Italy out that you can look at. Talking about visuals. Is it a house deposit, security for my family? That reason will be unique. And we've got to balance that bigger picture purpose of the business with that internal driver. So even that's another simple thing that people can think about — are you doing that in your business with your team?

Jeni Clift  (43:39)

It's an interesting point because our younger son Sam is working in sales in a company in London — in kind of our industry — and started a new job a while back and he got a sign-on bonus, which I didn't even know was a thing. But he said, well, that's paid for our trip to skiing in Austria. So for him it's all about travel and what they can do with it. So yeah, that just goes to show that point — it's not the money, it's what you can do with it.

Nicky Miklós  (43:59)

Exactly. And as a good sales leader, you want to know — what is that driver? Because then the conversations you have are more compelling for them. You're not talking about your X percent to target, you're talking about your X percent to that trip skiing in Austria. All of a sudden, I'm going to be a bit more motivated. It's like the visuals — my motivation is, this isn't the month that we're not going to hit that visual and it's all coloured in. You know, like that's — I love that.

I'm not going to be that guy.

So these days you both spend a lot of your time in your current business helping other business owners — tell me if this is accurate — getting unstuck, building their business by design, really learning some of the lessons that you learned over the last 25 years. What do you think are the things that business owners are still too afraid to do?

Nick Clift  (45:07)

Let go. It's simple. Yeah. Like, just having that innate trust — that you trust yourself, that you've employed good people, and then put them in a role, give them the support, and then let go and let them do it. One of the guests we had on this morning was talking about this and he was spot on — you've got to create an environment, and are they going to do it as good as you, are they going to make mistakes? 100% yes. But he said, as long as they don't send the business bankrupt, it's part of the learning process to get a better outcome. And I a hundred percent agree — that is the number one thing that people are still too scared to do. Let go.

And people pick up on that really quickly. You're either a trust giver or a trust earner. Jeni and I have always been — we back ourselves, right. We talk to you — like we trusted our whole sales team to you, Nicky, a hundred percent trust on day one. You didn't have to prove yourself to us. You didn't have to check in every day and say I've achieved this milestone today. Whereas other people are the complete opposite — I think you'll be okay, but you've got three months to prove yourself to me. And they use those words. And straight away, to me, that's a failed relationship.

You can lose trust by doing the wrong thing multiple times, or lying, or just doing something completely irresponsible. But you've got to start from a place of trust. And trust is built by trusting people to do something — which means you have to let go of some things. Just let go of something that's not going to send the whole company broke. But if they lose 10 grand on a deal, well, it's a lesson learned. It's not the end of the world.

Nicky Miklós  (46:55)

Yeah, yeah. And the return on effort or the return on investment from that learning — if you choose to look at this as a learning opportunity — that person will then, they're not going to want to lose that 10K again, they're going to learn from that and they're going to do even better. They're never going to make that mistake. So look at it as an investment of learning for future returns.

So good. Okay, so I feel like there's a little mini action there — the broader message: let go. And what I feel is a good action from there before we get to Jeni — find one thing that you can just let go a little bit today, in the next 24 hours. Something that makes your butt clench a little bit, but it's not high risk. Practice letting go. Delegate that thing, whatever it might be. I think that's a brilliant, simple action to get started with that behaviour.

And Jeni, what do you find the business owners are still too afraid to do? And then we'll turn that into a little action too.

Jeni Clift  (47:55)

Having difficult conversations. Yeah. I tried early on in my leadership style of sending ESP messages to people when I wanted them to know something that I wanted them to do differently, and it didn't go well. Not sure why, but actually learning to have those conversations, set really clear expectations and follow up on those discussions.

You can do it in a way that's not confrontational. It's a learning experience often for both of you. I had to learn some strategies early on — sitting quietly beforehand, sort of bracing myself for the conversation, and really focusing on what I wanted to say and how I wanted to feel after having that conversation. And just making it really, really clear. Giving praise where it's due, giving feedback where it's due, having those — do you like your job type of conversations.

But I think that's something that's hard. And a lot of people find it really, really intimidating. I actually even had staff say to me, I want feedback, I want you to tell me how to do things better. And I still struggled to do it even when they were asking for it. So as a leader, if you can learn how to do that well, I think that's a really important skill to learn.

Nicky Miklós  (49:27)

Yeah, I agree. And I actually recorded a podcast episode on this recently — so I shall pop the link in. It was all about how to have tough conversations, because it is such a fundamental, really critical success factor to creating that autonomous team. And we don't want to go either way — too hardcore in terms of overpraise, or no tough conversations. We've got to really find that balance of acknowledging what people are doing, celebrate success, and having some of those awkward conversations to make sure that everybody's clear on those standards.

So Jeni, what's a little action that people can take alongside one thing that they can let go of? A simple thing they can just let go of a little bit in the next 24 hours. Is there an action around tough conversations we can leave them with?

Jeni Clift  (50:17)

Have a conversation with somebody that you know you've needed to. And even if you just make it small, start small and build up from there, but just have a conversation with somebody in your life that you know needs to happen.

Nicky Miklós  (50:30)

And you know, you who are watching, who are listening, will know if there is a conversation that you've been avoiding — because there's gonna be like this little feeling that came up when we started talking about it. You can't hide any longer. We are here to be that person in your life, to give you the tough conversation. We see you.

And if you're not sure where to start, then the action can be to listen to that podcast episode. Guys, it has been amazing. I always love connecting with you. I love that we have stayed in contact for all these years. I love seeing your journey and all the amazing things that you're doing with other businesses. And tell me, where can people friendly stalk you?

Jeni Clift  (51:15)

We're both on LinkedIn — it's probably the best place. So Jeni Clift, J-E-N-I — my mother unfortunately couldn't spell when she named me. So yeah.

Nicky Miklós  (51:25)

I love that. I'll put the links in as well so you can just go click there.

Nick Clift  (51:31)

And our podcast is MSP Mastery Blog — mspmasteryblog.com — and yeah, tenasia.com is our main website. We've got all our details and bits and pieces. So thanks Nicky. It's been a great conversation again. And I look forward to looking up some of your episodes as well.

Nicky Miklós  (51:45)

Yes, I love that so much. I'll pop all the links in the show notes. There's so much gold that's been shared from tried and tested methodologies, frameworks, all the things — Nick and Jeni are the real deal.

As always, if there's anything that's come up that you want to share with us, please reach out to us. All the links are below and I'll see you next episode. See you later, everybody.

Nick Clift  (52:10)

Thank you.

Jeni Clift  (52:10)

Thanks Nicky.