Ask the Stupid Questions: Building a Sales Career from Scratch | Jacky Rossouw

Speaker A: Oh, Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm very excited. I'm joined by Jackie Russo, who is the sales, and I'm going to call you the marketing director at Lexico, uh, Lesiko South Africa. Jackie, welcome.

Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: So, Jackie, I always ask my guests to give their elevator pitch, and I haven't asked you to prepare, so I really do want to hear what you say. If I met you at a party or in an elevator, and you've got a few seconds to tell me who you are and what you're passionate about, go for it.

Speaker B: Okay. So I am the sales director of Leseka, South Africa. I didn't start at that point. I actually, um, found myself unemployed. And that's how I stumbled onto the job as the receptionist 23 years ago. And, yeah, I decided that I was going to make this my career because I was forced to. It was my method of survival, and I just threw myself into it and got to learn everything in all the different sections of the, of the business and then just worked my way up and eventually became the sales director. And I serve on the board of directors. I look after both nationally and regional sales sales efforts. I'm very instrumental in growing our footprint in the different. In the different regions. And this is what I wake up for every day. It's my passion, it's what drives me. It's my purpose. I enjoy just connecting with people. I enjoy offering value and, you know, seeing people, um, satisfied. So, yeah, it's what I do. It's what I do every day. And I hope I can do it for a long time still to come.

Speaker A: So. So you worked your way up from being the receptionist, being the sales director. What would you say was the one thing that got you there?

Speaker B: I think it's being open to learn. Being open to learn. And that. That's exactly where I found myself. My back was against the wall, and I just made a decision. I said, I am going to everything I possibly can. Yeah. And that's exactly what I did. Whatever anybody wanted, from trying to build a mechanism from scratch to wrapping a pallet in the warehouse, whatever it was, making tea for the md, whatever it took to get there and to learn, that's exactly what I did.

Speaker A: I love that answer. You know, I was expecting you to say hard work, because I know you also work flipping hard and never, never, don't, never, not working. But I think the fact that you said, I can, I, I can learn this thing is a massive mindset shift. And, uh, um, Somebody once said to me, why don't you turn down this promotion? Because I was being offered a promotion at the one company and I was like, why would I turn it on? He's like, I don't think you're, you're qualified. I said, I'll figure it out. And I think I was like, I'm gonna figure it out. I'm not gonna turn this down. I'll learn on the job. I'll fake it till I make it. But I think the learning mindset is key. And I think, uh, if you say to yourself, if I can learn, learn this, I can do it. And it's just about buckling down and figuring it out. Right. Getting your hands together.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I didn't even know how to turn a computer on, literally. But I was faking it till I make it. I was calling people to ask how to type a letter, how to use word, and all of those things. But I just knuckled down and said, I'm doing this. And yeah, it just, everything just, it was almost like a puzzle. Putting the pieces, putting the pieces together. Uh, it's been an incredible ride. Absolutely.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a big, big inspiration is don't be intimidated by anything. Just sit down, knuckle down, open the suitcase and look inside and start unpacking it and work out, you know, what's inside the suitcase. And then you start to understand each of the different elements.

Speaker B: So just never be, and never be afraid to ask a question, even if you're looking like as if you're stupid or an idiot. I had asked a million questions and some raised eyebrows, but I was like, I'm asking the question because I don't know.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And still today, even on a on board level, if I don't know something, I'm gonna ask. I'm not gonna sit there and, you know, just pretend that it's okay. I'll get it later. No, I'm gonna ask the question.

Speaker A: Uh, I found every time I sat in a big meeting and, and I had a question and I asked it. You feel so stupid. But inevitably, half the room had the same question. But they just didn't want to look like the fool.

Speaker B: Exactly, exactly.

Speaker A: No, I, I completely agree. And well done, Jackie. It's absolutely a pleasure working with you on a daily basis. You're one of our favorite clients. And uh, but you really need to add marketing into the, into the title sales and marketing director, because really that is part of your. Actually, yeah, uh, we're not going to even get into the fact that you're basically running the company. But that's. So do you still go out on sales calls or do you delegate that you still. Are you still client facing?

Speaker B: No, I, I actually was very, very involved from operational ground level straight through to strategic level. But this year we embarked on a different strategy. The market has changed so considerably over the last year. You know, things are so different. So we've changed our strategy in where we're going to find extra, extra business. And I have already built up relationships and this is in Africa. There's such huge opportunity there. But I found myself, I couldn't juggle all these balls and I realized that to have all these balls, something's going to give you and in order to build up the rest and I mean we have incredible staff that are passionate and very, very loyal and been with the company for a long time and you need to give them a little bit more. So I have this year decided to give the reins over of the operational and the day to day running and things like that over to more senior staff. It is a bitter pill to swallow. It's bit very difficult to take a step back and I have to constantly tell myself do not get involved, do not get involved. How are people going to learn? But it's been amazing. It's also now allowed me to focus a lot more on, on, on growing different revenue streams for the business and at the same time is building up of the staff, you know, to a level where they can make decisions. And because we're not going to be around, I'm not going to be around forever. You know, retirement comes up in the back of my mind consistently.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So it's great for me to be, start, to start building, you know of the other, of the other stuff. And they're doing amazing, they're doing amazing work and also uh, the same culture put up the hand when they don't know. So m. It just frees me up to do, to do, to, to build this other side of the business which, which I actually appreciate.

Speaker A: So a lot of people I think would be very intimidated being coming to this position where you're like uh, being told we have to focus on a whole new market. You're established in South Africa now, go and focus here. And you saying you already have relationships. How did you suddenly just create relationships like within the blink of an eye, opening new markets and new audiences. What did you do?

Speaker B: So we had a lot of. Not a lot. We had a few clients in Africa that we inherited from our factory way Back, but our factory being more into manufacturing, they didn't understand the sales partners. Sales is all about relationships. Then they handed it over to South Africa and we started to build relationships. It was very, very difficult because they dealing with people from Egypt, we coming from South Africa. How does this all fit? All fit together. It cost me the MD in the beginning. A lot of the groundwork passed it on over to me. I had to get on a plane, go to these countries, sit with people, go out to dinner, learn their culture, do a whole lot of things just to, you know, to start building on that relationship. And then it was just trying to see what their market was all about, what their challenges was, how we could fit in, how we could make it easy for them and offer different solutions for their market. And that's exactly what we did. I started to offer different things. I started to offer not only product coming in from Egypt, I started to offer product coming in from other countries, consolidating everything. So we do all the work for them and, and it just works, you know, but it is relationships, uh, that were very, very difficult to build. Some of them are, you know, not well versed in English. And you had to understand more about, you know, what makes them tick. Africa is a price. Oh my word. It's just all about price, price, price, price. So you had to kind of change their mindsets and sell value over, sell value over to them. Sell ease, you know, just the ease of working with us and not having to do anything. I had to try and sell all that over to them. And now we just see the orders are starting to flow. And I'm now trying to open even bigger markets, which is going to be a challenge. But I concentrated on building what we had so that there's that consistency which now allows me the opportunity to now venture into other markets and understand it better, which I've had to do a whole lot of research first. You know, you don't just, you don't just get on a plane, go there. Hi, I'm, um, from this and this is what I have to offer. There's so much research that you need to do before you, you know, start a relationship with somebody else in another country.

Speaker A: How important is picking up the phone in sales? Because I, I, you know, I think I also suffer from a little bit of phone intimidation and a lot of business owners suffer from that. They don't want to pick up the phone. Some salespeople, newer generations, it's more about sending them, sending an email and you know, that old school of just Calling. Do you still call, make phone calls? Or are you mostly on email?

Speaker B: No, I make phone calls. WhatsApp in Africa, they love doing work on WhatsApp, but also teams meetings and, you know, where we put cameras on and we converse and you know, it's, it's, it's important to have that connection. It's, it's difficult, you know, online it is difficult. You know, it's better when you're sitting in front of, in front of somebody else. But a lot of the success of the business in those countries came via online, but it was connecting all the time and it was not just, you know, picking up the phone, hi, how are you? Or whatever it was doing prep work, showing them this is what your business has done. You know what I mean? This is the value add that we can to increase your business. You know, understanding their business, doing a lot of research online, putting something together and pulling it up so that can see. So it's not just a conversation that you, you know, that you're having. You come in with something, you're offering a solution all the time, you know, and that is what they enjoy. You're making it so, so much easier for them. They don't have to think about it because you've done all the research. You found out what's happening with the factory, you find out shipping routes, you find out, uh, how long it's going to take to get to them. So when you present something to them, all that information is there already. So you bring in the value to, to them, you know, so you can do it online. But I do get onto a plane every so now and then and go and connect, you know, face to face because that's very important as well.

Speaker A: So that's a, uh, that's a mini cheat sheet on how to expand into Africa. Number one, do your research, build on any existing relationships you might have. Understand their market, their pains, their business, their audience, the way they like to do business. Pick up the phone, go and meet them, build relationships, solve their problems for them, show them you can do it, and then they will start to test you out and you start to grow that and then word of mouth and

Speaker B: then remain consistent and remain consistent because you've got to, after time, things just start to get a bit stale.

Speaker A: Yes. In South Africa, I know a lot of industries are facing challenges, obviously for many years now of, you know, cheap Chinese imports or other price undercutting. And how do you as a brand handle price wars?

Speaker B: Okay, so there's always going to be price wars there, uh, is always going to be price wars. So 20 odd years ago when I got into Lexico, it was very, very difficult. You know, you were trying to compete with brands that had, that were well established in the market and you tried to get into, you know, you tried to get into the market and all you could think about was I need to compete on price.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But eventually you realize that competing on price is not sustainable. You have to add value in another form.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, and, and, and, and what we did was we decided that, you know, if we compete on price, our business is not going to survive. You know, we had to find another strategy. We had to look at our competitors, see what they were or where their shortcomings was. And we had to build on those shortcomings and see how could we take our strategy, build it on that shortcomings and then offer real value. And in that way we'd be able to build trust with, with, with our clients. And at the end of the day, trust was our competitive advantage.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Because we built up all the fundamentals that there was and we built a long standing relationship with trust. And now, yes, there's always going to be price wars. There's always going to be customers that want something cheap. There's always going to be the influx. And I mean it's not, you're not only getting bad quality from China because 5% of our business we import from China. But um, you do get the cheaper brands coming in from China, coming in from India or whatever and the people that are selling it or I never understand it because it just doesn't work. The product fails and you damage your brand. And for us, uh, we've taken a long time to get our brand to where we need it to be and to compete just on price and damage your brand is actually not worth it. It's actually not worth it in the long run.

Speaker A: No. And you're burning through customers because someone who's bought from you m. You burn them once, they're not going to buy from.

Speaker B: No, no. And that's why I say is, you know, a couple, I always remember the story a couple of years one of our competitors was selling a product that was, I think could have been about 30% cheaper than our product, but yet our product grew with 40% even though they were cheaper in the, cheaper in the market. But you can put price out into the market, but if you cannot back it up with a correct stock holding service, you know, reliability, m dependability, all of those things, you can't back it up with that you can have the cheapest price in the market. The customer is eventually going to say no, you know, and they're just going to go there where they know they're going to be able to get the stock. The best thing that we could have done is that we had upped our stock holding by millions. Millions. And that was the key differentiator for us. When we did that, we were in the game.

Speaker A: Wow. Well, I think what you just, you just gave a marketing 101 lesson. Um, I always say that, you know, you sell, you sell this widget and if you, if you just sell this, you're going in on a price, just it's price. But if you layer these tissues around it and you said pricing, reliability, stock holding, relationship, service, quality, um, understanding of the industry, all of those things, guarantees, warranties, those are like tissues. That, and that's what you, that word you used, value. And then when you present someone with this value ball, they're buying the thing, but they're also buying all these other things. Suddenly the price becomes less important. It doesn't become the focus. And that's literally what Marketing 101, you know, price wars, everybody loses.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's so, you know what? I, I, I, um, hate to say it, but I'm going to say it. It's so old school.

Speaker A: Yes, it is.

Speaker B: It's so old school because at the end of the day is you in a pr, you setting a price and you're benchmarking the industry, you know what I mean? And then you can't, you benchmark it so low that eventually you can't get out there. And at the end of the day

Speaker A: is it's not sustainable and you do everybody harm and.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: But also I've got to say that the clients that buy based on lowest price are also not eventually your clients, you know, because there's always going to be people that want to squeeze the last drop out of you. And anyone who's doing that, that's, that's not relationship, it's not sustainable. And they're not in it for your win and my win. You know, that's right.

Speaker B: A good tip is walk away when you have to walk away. Yes, walk away. You know, when it doesn't serve, you walk away. People come and throw numbers at you and quantities at you, but when you do the numbers and you realize I need to walk away, then you need to walk away.

Speaker A: And it's difficult as a salesperson, especially if you're driven, because sometimes you get so locked in on the Sale. I've sometimes locked in on a sale and closed that sale, even though everything in me was screaming, walk away. This is. This client's a lunatic, and you're gonna eat the brown stuff. And we did. We ate the brown stuff. And, um, and I just ignored all my instincts, pushed for the sale. And. Yeah, it's.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's a lesson. That's a hard lesson I've learned in the past because I've done that. I was like, no, you know, we're trying to win market share lit. But when you get down to the numbers and you see the numbers and you go like,

Speaker A: we're actually paying and sponsoring this. This client. Yeah, 100. Absolutely.

Speaker B: And then you, you, you are creating a monster in that client because it becomes an expectation. You know, they never accept the price. It's always, I want a lower price. I want a lower price. So this year we took a very, very strong uh, uh, uh, stand and we said, this is our price and this is our price. With that, we can guarantee our stock holding all the different things that we could at, but this is our price. And last year when we decided that we had to put our price up because we've had three price increases last year, which we've absorbed as a company, and we said, we can't do that anymore. We have to pass the price onto the market. And there was many that came back and said, oh, we're going to lose volumes. Yes, we're going to lose volumes. But at the end of the day, we'd rather use volumes and make margin. Then, you know, just turn money over. Because nobody's in this business just to turn money over.

Speaker A: No, no, exactly. Just keep busy and not build.

Speaker B: And when you, and when you, when you. Accountable to shareholders, they don't want to hear that, that you're just turning money over. You know, you've got to make the hard decisions. Unfortunately, no.

Speaker A: 100. Right. Uh, and sometimes you have to take two steps back, you know, cut, cut some clients maybe have a loss, maybe consolidate a little bit, recover for a year or two, and then rebuild something. But on, on the right footing with the brand. With the brand at the level that you want to. Almost a repositioning. Um, so let's. Speaking about brand and positioning, you're in, you're in sanitary wear and it's. There are a lot of brands out there doing the same thing as you. How do you stand out as a brand? How do you build a brand that is, that differentiates?

Speaker B: Look, I think a lot of people think that you have to be this different. You have to do something different. My opinion is you don't have to do something different. You just have to do the fundamentals better than anybody else. And the key, which was a big mistake, Big, big, big mistake on my part, was I tried to run a marketing department internally.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Internally. Without specialized skill. And that was the. One of the biggest mistakes I've made in my career. And when I realized that and we rectified that and we got the agency on board. Wow. I realized, how could you have looked at this as a cost and not looked at it strategically? You, um, see, all the years I looked at it, oh, this is just a cost. This is just a cost. But when I shifted and said, let's look at this from a strategic point of view, and the best part of all is, you know, it's not just that it's great. These measurements, I can see our specifications has grown year on year. 46%.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: 46%. Because that's what we're concentrating on. We're more visible now. We are evolving with the market. You know, we're becoming more digitally smart. And all of those things was things that we didn't do because, you know, we didn't have the specialized skills and the guidance to say, guys, this is what you need to take your brand to the next level. We were still stuck in the old way. This is a cost. This is a cost. We'll just keep it internally and do whatever. And at the end of the day, we had no identity. And once we brought the agency on board, we discovered our identity and we were seen by everybody. I mean, everybody saw the change. And now, like I say, is from a specifications and a pipeline position, we are on way better than where we were where we were before. So I think marketing on the one end, we've kept the fundamentals. We've. We've tried to improve on it and do it better than other people. But once we incorporated the fundamentals and we brought the marketing on board and created that visual and that identity outside and we get seen and, you know, we were guided on how to do things better. I've seen the change immediately, and that's supporting sales. Because Lesiko South Africa is a small team, a lot of people don't believe we're only 19 or 20 people in the whole company. That's including in our warehouse, everything. And we can only do what we do because our marketing is great now. So it's almost like more people on the ground for us. You know, we don't have to throw, we don't have to throw bodies at this.

Speaker A: I think that's amazing. And I'm obviously uh, I didn't ask you to say that, but thank you that you said that and you said

Speaker B: it so it's the truth. I mean unfortunately it was a decision that I had to look back and say where are we making the mistakes? And when I had to analyze this and say what is the biggest mistake? We don't realize how important marketing is because a lot of businesses look at it as a cost.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: They look at it as a cost. They don't take the leap and say let me do this and then let me measure what it's doing. Then you go out there into the market and you get feedback from people. You go out there, you speak to professionals, you get feedback from them and everything is becoming so much easier because we've now gotten the agency on M board that has helped us evolve from a digital perspective because we didn't have the skills for it. We were doing what we were doing but we were not doing it correctly. And unfortunately, sorry you the agency, but you guys did a great job and thank you.

Speaker A: I think the first time I met you was when we were looking at your website together and I was like, it needs a bit of work.

Speaker B: And I thought it was great. I thought the website was great. And then now when I speak to people, they were like, oh my word, it is so user friendly. I mean we can see the stats. And that's why I say it's not a matter of just giving accolades out. The stats speak for itself. And that's me. I enjoy data. And the data's got to talk and paint a picture for me and the data's painted the picture.

Speaker A: I think that's the beauty you have. And a lot of companies that are in manufacturing of a product, they, they, they think I don't need this whole digital thing, I don't need this whole brand. I'm known, people know me in the industry. But I love the way you've put it. Basically you've got the bedrock in place. You have the great product, you have the great service, you have the great people, you've got the relationships and the brand. When, when that goes underneath and just supports it just lifts everything to uh, a higher level. I think you've said it beautifully.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And you know what, I realized this all the years. If we have done this years earlier, I hate to think where we would be at already. But anyway, we've had to learn the lesson. We've had to learn the lesson. So other companies that are thinking still in the direction of this is a cost M and our brand is well known. You know, there's other brands up and coming, brands that will overtake you in no time because they are evolving and keeping with the times. You can't just rely on, oh, I've been known in the market for the last 40 years.

Speaker A: No, yeah, I think I, I like what you've said and uh, and, and the work that we've done and, and doing this work sets your brand up, like you say, for the next 40 years. In other words, when you do this work, it just takes you, makes you more sustainable and gives you a better, stronger foothold for the, for the future. Especially in uncertain economic times as we face.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. And you've got to think at how you can work smarter here, you know, because times are changing, times are changing, margins are dropping, you know, everything that's happening around us. Somebody, uh, said to me the last time, do you pick up a trend? I said no. For the first, this last two or three years, there was no trend. You know, you try to do budgets and whatever and you thumb sucking because there's just no trend. But you've got to do all these things in the background and make sure that you remain relevant, make sure that you, you know, get seen and make sure that you're changing and you're keeping with the times and working smarter, not harder, working smarter. You know, you've gotta, you've got to just stay with the times.

Speaker A: Unfortunately, I, I completely agree and I think it's that change that a lot of people struggle with because we've done it this way for many years and now why do we need to change it? It's been working. Why do we need digital? Um, but I agree with you. I think if you, if you take that change, you future proof your business. And Jackie, thank you so much. It's been amazing speaking to you. In closing, do you have any words of inspiration for somebody trying a brand or launch into Africa?

Speaker B: My best advice can be that markets will change all the time. But you, if you adaptable m, you do enough research, you concentrate on building relationships, you'll survive out there and you will be the best that you can be. But you have to also, you have to embrace change all the time. You've got to be stepping back and looking back and saying, what can I do better? What have I done that worked? What's happening in the market? Can I change? You know, and stop looking at everything as just the cost. We've got to look at some. At investing in growth, not just at the cost. Yes, it's important. You've got to balance it. I understand that. I'm not being unrealistic in saying that, you know, don't forget about costs, whatever. You've got to look at cost also. But if you're in it to want to grow your business, then you've got to find that balance between cost and investing in growth. You have to find that balance. Otherwise you're going to get stuck and left behind or you're going to be doing the numbers that you're doing. You're not going to be moving further. And people that are doing the same numbers every, every year, uh, eventually you're going to see a drop if you're not embracing change, unfortunately.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Well said, Jackie. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your inspiration. If people want to reach out to you, I will connect them with your, your LinkedIn in the description below. And, um, yeah, thank you guys. Thank you, Jackie. And thank you everybody for joining us today. Please remember to, like, comment and subscribe and I'll see you next time. Thank you, Jackie. Thank you.

Speaker B: Bye bye.