Fractional Hustle

Stephen: 00:01

Welcome back to Fractional Hustle. My guest today is Misha Aguilar. Misha is the founder of Aguilar Advisory Consulting, an expert in SaaS and high ticket sales. Misha also consults in revenue and strategy. She's out of Boise, Idaho, and I'm very excited to touch upon some of that and more.

Stephen: 00:19

Misha, the other day I saw that Boise has a cool rainforest. I don't know if you've ever been there. I was like, that's so random that Idaho has rainforest. You know, I thought that was really, really cool. Have you ever been there?

Misha: 00:32

I have not. No. And I I'm an Idaho native, but I've actually never done that before.

Stephen: 00:37

Yeah. Yeah. It was just, like, super random. I was like, you know, you don't think, rainforest when it comes to Idaho. But yeah.

Misha: 00:44

I'm, like, very much in the desert part of Idaho. So

Stephen: 00:48

Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe, you know, vacation at some point. Right?

Misha: 00:51

Yeah. For sure. Bring the kids.

Stephen: 00:53

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You know? But thank you so much for joining me today.

Stephen: 00:57

I'm very excited to talk to you, kind of out of my wheelhouse. Right? Some of your expertise, especially, like, on the sales side, so I'm definitely excited to learn more about that. Before we hopped on, right, we were kinda talking about the realities of, you know, working for yourself, kind of, like, leaving the stability of a nine to five. Can you just tell me your story, like, how you kind of got into this line of work and, you know, the things that you found, you know, the pros, the cons, kinda that that sort of thing?

Misha: 01:28

So I have always had a little bit of an entrepreneur spirit. I grew up with parents that were entrepreneurs, but there was always this scarcity mindset and the paycheck, we always felt insecure. And so I very much dove into building a career, and I built a a really great career for myself in sales, and I kind of worked up the ladder. I was really proud of myself. And I went on maternity leave, and when I came back, they laid me off.

Misha: 01:52

And it was a huge wake up call that the security that I thought I would have in my nine to five career wasn't even real. And I was like, well, if that's if this is kind of an illusion almost, it was shattered for me. And I realized I don't wanna be reliant on somebody else to dictate my pay, my hours, my availability, and especially, you know, supporting my family. I couldn't leave that up to chance anymore, and so I wanted something where my work would directly result in my paycheck. And so I started building out a consulting company, and I did it on the side while finding another job.

Misha: 02:26

And when I went back into corporate, I just realized that there's a lot of cultural problems in a lot of companies that aren't being addressed. And I would have more impact building my own business and going into companies and helping fix that than I would just continuing to to seek out more employment. And so that was really the foundation of what I wanted to build was how can I help companies create a culture where people can thrive, but also make an impact on departments that maybe couldn't afford to bring me on as a full time employee?

Stephen: 02:55

So you're talking about culture. What were some of those things that you saw in organizations in terms of their culture that weren't making sense that you just saw were issues and you wanted to change?

Misha: 03:06

Yeah. I feel like when people talk about culture, they're they're oftentimes focused on unlimited PTO or, you know, we'll have a pizza party in the break room. That doesn't actually make for psychologically safe work environments. And I have had my fair share of toxic bosses, but I've also had my fair share of leaders who truly pour into us and facilitate our growth, and that's how I operate as a leader. I'm very much a servant leader.

Misha: 03:30

I will be in the weeds with my team, helping them figure out, solve problems and all of that. And so I realized that the overarching theme of culture is focused on the wrong things, and it's really about the leaders that are in place and the environment that they're creating. And there's an ability to shift that when you go into an in a department and bring fresh perspective and bring fresh energy, and you become the leader that you want people to be.

Stephen: 03:56

Do you think it's almost more advantageous that you're coming in as an outsider trying to create those changes instead of being a part of an organization and trying to change it from within?

Misha: 04:05

Yes. That's what I've I've absolutely found to be true because when you join as an employee, you quickly become part of the culture, and you just accept what it is. And or the loud voices at the company start to mute you. Well, we've always done it this way. It's always work.

Misha: 04:21

Our employee turnover is low. That may be true and fine, but the people who are working there are not actually happy. They're not actually fulfilled. There's not a promotion track. There's nothing that helps grow or develop them.

Misha: 04:33

And so coming from an outside perspective, I'm really quickly able to identify where might a pain point be, how can we facilitate change, and what do we need from the ground up really to rebuild or to restructure.

Stephen: 04:46

And if you're seeing someone is a leadership in an organization and maybe they have a good product or service, but you see some some something lacking in their leadership skills, how would you build them up? How would you kind of instruct them to move forward as a leader in order to create that better culture within that organization?

Misha: 05:04

It it oftentimes depends on their desire. Like, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. And so it's oftentimes I can pinpoint, here's the specific strategy we we could do to improve leadership. You know? Are we listening?

Misha: 05:16

Are we truly listening to understand, or are we listening to respond? Are we leading team meetings with the opportunity for everyone to have their voice heard? Or are we leading team meetings with the group think where this is what I said and everyone's gonna do it that way? And so it's just, you know, I I join the meetings as an observer. I listen.

Misha: 05:34

I pay attention. I watch how the communication is. I'll oftentimes do one on ones with everybody on the team and ask specific questions. You know? Do you feel like it's safe to go to your leader when you disagree?

Misha: 05:44

Because oftentimes as leaders, it can be hard to swallow our own pride and say, oh, someone doesn't agree with me. And so I ask those questions, and as I start to facilitate the whole group, we start to identify, you know, as a leader, when you're going to these meetings, you may have the best intent. You may truly wanna listen to improve your team. Are you allowing them the opportunity to speak up and say that they disagree or they wanna try something that's different than you? And sometimes that's allowing them to learn through failure.

Misha: 06:09

And as leaders, that can be really hard to watch our teams do that, but creating a safe place where we learn through failing is really important for them as well.

Stephen: 06:18

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And then going back to just kind of, like, you starting your own organization, how has that journey been for you just in terms of control, right, where you're you're kind of you know, there's risk. Right?

Stephen: 06:34

There's just this inherent risk with starting your own thing and going on out on your own, but there's advantages to it too. You know? So how has that journey kind of been where you do have more control, but it's it's more on you, right, that that pressure?

Misha: 06:47

Yes. It's a lot because there's so much riding on my ability to show up, and we all have bad days. Right? But when you're on your own, you have to show up. And so it's I've had to find a balance of giving myself grace on those hard days where, yes, I'm responsible for my own outcomes and I need to show up, but also we are human.

Misha: 07:07

And if you are not pouring into your own cup, you can't pour into your clients either. And so it's finding that balance of saying, like, today is an off day. I think I'm gonna take the day to have a warm cup of coffee and read a book and rejuvenate. And so it's it that's been the hardest piece for me, honestly, is finding the balance between my clients, myself, being a mother, a wife. All of those pieces have to remain under this one little bubble that is me.

Stephen: 07:28

Yeah. Yeah. No. No. That's it's it's true.

Stephen: 07:32

Right? You know? And you have to check-in with yourself and build that structure for yourself and take care of you because no one else will. Right? So that's that's that's super admirable.

Stephen: 07:40

To dive more into, the weeds a little bit, something I saw on your your site was the core framework. Can Can you just tell me a little bit more about that and kind of how you came to that conclusion of of building that framework?

Misha: 07:55

Yeah. So after I joined several companies, I'd really started to identify. We touched on the first element, which c is culture.

Stephen: 08:02

Right.

Misha: 08:02

But the other ones are O for operations, R for revenue, and then E for efficiency. And so I realized that most often when I'm joining organizations, there is a fault in one of those pillars. And so the core of your organization has to be sturdy, which is how is your culture? What is your operations looking like? How is your revenue and what is efficiency?

Misha: 08:22

And one of the most important of those pieces, it boils down to communication. So under operations, we're looking at your workflows, your processes, your team roles. We're going to ensure that you have the tools and systems in place. If there's bottlenecks, we're gonna be removing those. And that kind of trickles down into revenue.

Misha: 08:40

You know, I noticed in revenue departments, I came from the sales side, and there's always this disconnect between sales. We're we're kinda labeled as the big ego or hard to work with. There seems to be this disconnect between sales, marketing, client success, operations. They're just kind of siloed out. For a revenue organization to really function at peak, they need to have seamless communication.

Misha: 09:02

They need to be working in tandem. And so we would establish sales enablement. We'd work on CRM. We'd focus on getting predictable revenue. And just opening those lines of communication for collaboration and realizing if your client comes first and that's the goal, why aren't all the departments talking and working together?

Stephen: 09:21

I feel like my head goes to the human element. Right? Like, there's personalities. There's egos. Yeah.

Stephen: 09:27

How do you kinda navigate that when you're dealing with the people on the day to day side? How do you kind of remedy that?

Misha: 09:34

And that is where we kind of roll back up into culture, which is what is the culture that the leaders have instilled. And I've realized that the leaders set the tone for everybody else in the organization. So if sales has sat on a pedestal all along of, like, they're the golden child, they're the ones that brings in the money, and marketing is just, like, the admin team on the side, like, that's you're setting the wrong expectations for your team, and they're gonna act in alignment with that. And so it's level setting. Like we are a team, we work in tandem and sales can't do their job without marketing.

Misha: 10:03

Marketing, you can bring in every day, but if someone's not closing what you're doing, operations is over here trying to keep your CRM clean. So if you're not in your CRM using what they're doing, so it's just it's creating those expectations and then holding people to them. And if you don't wanna perform in that kind of an environment, do we have the right person in the right seat? And that's a hard conversation that not everyone wants to have, but it's necessary.

Stephen: 10:25

Yeah. So it truly starts with the c for sure. And then kinda going over the o for operations, you know, say you have that communication, in place, so you're working with some an organization for, you know, a month, a week, or whatever it takes. How do you go into identifying the inefficiencies and operations and kind of remedying that?

Misha: 10:45

It's really easy and quick to identify if there's bottlenecks because you'll notice where the fall is happening when it comes to pipeline. So maybe we're losing people at top of funnel, or maybe we're losing them at bottom of funnel. When you start to identify where the clients are lose we're losing them in that journey, you can identify, is this because sales is lacking a skill set on closing, or is marketing lacking the right persona? So you can start to quickly identify those pieces, and then you can kind of reverse engineer the solution from there. And when it comes to systems and processes, sometimes we think that the biggest, fanciest gadgets are the best.

Misha: 11:21

And oftentimes we just need to simplify. Maybe we have too many tools. Maybe we have too many hands in the cookie jar. We need to assign one person to oversee CRM management, and we need to assign one person to oversee tech stack. And so it's sometimes it's just about simplifying.

Misha: 11:36

We think when we start a company, I did this myself, we need all the technology. And oftentimes, we actually don't. One or two really well thought out and set up tools is all you need.

Stephen: 11:46

Yeah. Yeah. I I always go back to if it's not broken, kinda, like, don't fix it. You know? Like, if something's, like Yep.

Stephen: 11:52

Bringing in money, if it's bringing in revenue, it's like, you know, people kinda wanna come in and tinker and make it better. But it's like, if it's working and it's consistent and, you know, it's bringing in money, like, what you don't necessarily need to reinvent the wheel. Absolutely. Yep. So I would kinda wanna dive into the sales team aspect of it.

Stephen: 12:10

Right? Because I'm you know, that's not really my wheelhouse. You know? I feel like it's you're you're much more experienced than that. What's your philosophy with sales?

Stephen: 12:18

You know? How do you how do you kind of build a sales team and build up their skills and and close?

Misha: 12:24

Yeah. I love that. I everything I do is around the culture that I build for my teams, and that's why oftentimes I've built high performing teams. I've had team members qualify for president's club. I have promoted several team members up into management themselves or from SDR to account executive.

Misha: 12:41

And so there's an element of hire right the first time instead of having to go back and revisit this conversation, which is why I strongly recommend if you've not had someone in your department or in your company sat in a sales seat, hire fractional first because you're not gonna know what you're you're hiring for. So do that right the first time. Hire right and look for people who have a strong track record or are willing to learn. So I am more willing to hire someone who has good soft skills and hard skills because I can train you how to close. Some of my top performers had never sat in a sales seat, but they're really good with people and they wanna learn and they're hungry.

Misha: 13:18

And that's what's gonna make the best salesperson. Money motivated is huge. If you can show them what a commission check's gonna look like, boom. You've got a good one. And so and it then from there, my philosophy is not slimy.

Misha: 13:32

Like, I don't want sales to be the icky word of the company. I wanna see one of the respected departments, and so I instill a conversational sales approach. So the way that I found the best closes is I ask enough questions for the client to close themselves, which, you know, if I was going through discovery with you, it's, you know, how long have you been looking for a new solution? What's your most frustrating part about the solution? When would you wanna have this solution, implemented by?

Misha: 13:58

Through those questions, I just found out their timing. I didn't have to ask them a specific, do you wanna close by February? Like, it's just a roundabout way of asking them enough questions that you get to the real the root of the problem. You know, if you're identifying who's gonna have authority to close, is this a decision that's often needed in a group? Or are you gonna be the sole person making this decision?

Misha: 14:17

Oh, well, no. I'll probably bring in my partner, Bob. Okay. Great. When's Bob available?

Misha: 14:20

So we can have a conversation. It's just through conversational nature, you're helping them solve a problem that they're already aware of and need a solution to. And so that's the other piece is I make sure when I hire somebody, they believe in the solution because you can't sell if you're not personally in alignment with it. So if you don't like the topic, you're probably not the right person to be in that seat. And then the price point, you also need to have confidence in the price.

Misha: 14:47

Because if you come on to the sales call saying, well, it's $10,000, but I might be able to get it for 9. Like, you're instilling questions prospect instead of giving them the confidence and transferring that enthusiasm.

Stephen: 14:59

Yeah. So belief, I kinda I really like that word, right, where you have to have these people that are evangelists for the product. Yep. You know? And so how do you build belief into into a team or, you know, that passion?

Stephen: 15:13

I feel I I % agree with you. Right? Like, I'm not gonna buy from someone who doesn't believe in the product either. So how do you build that confidence in in a salesperson or, you know, it's just repetition? It's getting the reps out there or the practice?

Stephen: 15:24

You know? Like, just how'd you go about that?

Misha: 15:27

Yeah. It is. It's reps. It's practice. It's also so if if you're hiring from the ground up, you're able to hire people who have been in the industry for a while, so they're typically gonna be interested in that product, or they will have heard of the product in the past.

Misha: 15:40

So I love hiring people who have used it and or have at least heard of it in the past, because then they are already gonna kind of be a natural evangelist. One of my companies that I worked at was a coding software company, and we taught people how to code. And the sales team members that I had that performed the best actively used it to go learn new coding language. And so when they would jump on the call with prospect, oh, yeah. I just got my SQL or I just got my you know?

Misha: 16:04

They were able to get in the zone with the client and lead them through this whole conversation of why it was working so well. Now if you have team members preexisting, they've been there a while. So it's figuring out maybe why they don't believe in the product. And, again, that goes to you as the leader being available for them to trust you and ask questions and be transparent. So, well, I like the product, but here's my concern.

Misha: 16:27

I don't think it does x, y, and z appropriately. Well, now why don't we just add that to the roadmap? Why don't we take it back to the team and say, one of my sales team members has a concern with this part of the product. What are we doing to resolve that? So, again, it's opening those lines of communication and being a resource for them to kinda solve their own doubt.

Stephen: 16:45

You know, say we have that sales team where we we're we're, you know, we're building up this group for, you know, four months, six months. Where does the r come into play in core with the revenue sides? Like, how are you making sure that money is coming in and you're kind of growing consistently and scaling an organization?

Misha: 17:02

Yeah. Absolutely. You have to focus on the departments working in tandem as I mentioned earlier. So is marketing bringing in enough leads? And if they're not, what's the budget for marketing to be using when it comes to ads?

Misha: 17:13

And or what kinds of material are they using for the sales team to go hunt? And when you're a new organization, it it's really difficult to hire someone to only be a closer. They're most likely either gonna need to be full sales cycle or you're gonna need to have some kind of an SDR doing outbound. And that's the other thing is I encourage companies from the very beginning to have both sales motions in place, inbound and outbound, because you're not at a place where you can only rely on inbound. And you also don't wanna burn your teams out by having them only do outbound, Cause the close ratio can be quite a bit lower on that side.

Misha: 17:46

And so it's just finding a balance and realizing what are our sales assets, what's marketing doing, what's sales doing. And then I prefer to be able to actually listen to sales calls and realize, are we losing them in the close because we're doing something wrong? Are they not liking the product, the price point, and kind of revisiting whatever the most common objections are and either training up the team or taking it back to the c suite and saying, you know, this is our most common objection. What are we doing to resolve that? So is a piece of the product missing?

Misha: 18:15

Is the road map lacking? Is the price just not an industry standard right now? And that can be that you're too low on the price so that they think you're cheap, But it can also be that you're overpriced, and they look at a Cadillac and a Toyota, and they're like, well, the Toyota's still gonna get me to work tomorrow. So, you know, I'm gonna go with the competitor.

Stephen: 18:31

Yep. Reliable. So I feel like we're kinda touching upon strategy, which I feel like you're also an expert on, right, where where I am not. So can you just kind of give me maybe some more tips or pointers on just overall strategy for the organization that you kind of maybe you get hired, you're coming into being, you know, fractional consultant. How do you go about just optimizing an organization strategy and where they're at in the market a marketplace and getting them from a to b?

Misha: 18:57

It's important for everybody at the company to recognize that they have a seat and to stay in that seat. Because, again, it goes to too many hands in the cookie jar, starts to cause problems. And it's very tempting, especially when the CEO is the founder, to wanna remain involved in sales and to wanna remain in marketing. But you you've hired me or a marketing consultant or whatever to come in and play the genius in that department, let them do their job. And so what I help CEOs and other C suite executives realize is your job now is to be a decision maker.

Misha: 19:29

What decisions are you making now that's setting your company up for long term success? And let the people you're hiring do what they do best, which is execute. And so that'll be sometimes we're gonna talk about, is it time to go raise capital? Is it time to hire more people? Is it time to change our marketing strategy?

Misha: 19:46

Are you on LinkedIn? Are you doing video content? All of these pieces can come into play, and it's up to the CEO to be making the decisions. And then how are they communicating them down to their teams? So I also help them recognize the strategy, what their role is, and then I help them facilitate the communication in a way that is understandable to some of those individual contributors.

Misha: 20:09

Because oftentimes, there's a gap between what the CEO sees as the vision and what the team actually hears for execution. And so you kinda get to play the middleman of communicate up the problems, communicate down the visions that everyone's operating from start with why.

Stephen: 20:24

Do you see any issues I mean, I I I don't know if you've had this experience. Right? But I've had I've been a part of organizations that, you know, work with people where it feels like sometimes maybe your input falls on deaf ears or, you know, you're just you're just not being hurt by leadership or you know, have you seen that in organizations? And how do you kind of remedy that, would you say, from from are you going to the CEO? Are you going to the team?

Stephen: 20:51

You know, are you playing the middleman, like you said? Like, you know, what what would you go? What would you do?

Misha: 20:56

Yeah. I think it's it it has absolutely happened, and it can be hard because there's a lot of egos involved. There's pride. This is their baby. They've built this, especially when the founder and CEO are the same person.

Misha: 21:09

And so I like to remind them that they hired me for a purpose. I'm here to support them with their dream and their vision. It's gonna take some wild trust. But once they start to see the outcomes, then they're like, okay. Now they're bought in.

Misha: 21:23

And it it happens in the reverse as well when it's the team who's not quite like, what are you here doing? You're telling me what to do, and I don't know you. And building that trust right away, building that rapport. I'm here to help you be better at your job. I'm here to help you communicate with other teams in a faster fashion.

Misha: 21:38

I'm here to make your role more efficient. I'm here to help you make more money. Kind of feeding into their ego, building them up. I'm here to make you better. I'm here to make you shine helps a lot.

Misha: 21:48

So it's just the way that you communicate your value. I'm not here to be better than. I'm here to make you better and this company better.

Stephen: 21:56

Yeah. Yeah. I know. And especially I mean, you know, there's people hire consultants and sometimes it's like, you know, are they there to, you know, chop people and get rid of some, you know, get rid of people? Like, it's like you're going against, you know, you're kind of going against the grain of, like, what a consultant is and, you know, this kind of, like, this, you know, the stigma, right, of of of going into that world.

Stephen: 22:16

And so, you know, I can totally see that. You know? I in a different life, I was a real estate agent in New York City when I was, like, 20. So, like, so everyone distrusted me. And then I'm you know, you get into that world, and it's like, well, I completely understand why you would distrust me.

Stephen: 22:31

You know? And so Absolutely. You know? So, yeah, I got out of that life. But, you know, yeah, you're kind of you're you're going uphill.

Misha: 22:38

Well, and consultants have they've previously had kind of a stuffy reputation, like the consultant because I'm here to change things, and, like, they come in wearing their suit jacket. And that's it's a stigma. It's the same reason the stigmas exists around salespeople being slimy. Like, there are a lot of bad actors doing it wrong.

Stephen: 22:55

Yeah.

Misha: 22:56

And I'm here to change that. I want people to know that when they hire me, I'm on their side. Does that mean sometimes tough conversations happen? Sure. But at the end of the day, is it for a better purpose?

Misha: 23:07

Yes.

Stephen: 23:08

So a word that I liked on when I was doing some research on you was sustainable, right, which I feel like we're we're kinda touching upon that here. Right? So it's like, how are you building growth that's sustainable? I feel like do you have any more thoughts on that? I feel like we've kinda covered that.

Stephen: 23:24

But, you know, building that trust, building that, you know, that culture, and that's how you build sustainable growth. Because like you said, there are a lot of bad actors out in in sales and, you know, in consulting. Right? So, do you have any more thoughts on that? I feel I mean, I feel like we've kinda touched upon it, but I just I I really believe that what you that's true.

Stephen: 23:44

You know? I really do believe that.

Misha: 23:47

Yeah. I think that the sustainability piece comes from that bridge between the strategy and the actual execution happening. So I'm not just gonna come in and hand you a playbook and be like, done. Here you go. And you're still left wondering, like, cool.

Misha: 23:59

I have the playbook, but now what do I do with it? So once the strategy has been set, I will kinda knock the dominoes down to get the the energy rolling and get things going. Because once it's in motion, it's harder to stop it. And so while I'm still present and able to facilitate, I'm I'm in the weeds with you. I'm making sure that we are executing.

Misha: 24:18

And if we're seeing things that need to pivot, we do that right away. We don't let it fester and get worse. And so if that means we need to maybe clean house from some people who aren't in the right seats, we'll do that while I'm there. I'll help facilitate those conversations. I'll help make sure that we are getting the right people in.

Misha: 24:33

If we're needing to hire for specific roles, I'll help draft the job descriptions. I'll help interview. So that's what leads to the sustainability is I get you to buy in with me, and then I execute with you until you see the process. And now if I'm not there, you still remember how it's done.

Stephen: 24:49

Yeah. Yeah. So if someone wants to get in touch, right, if someone wants to find you, what would be the best way to do so? Because I feel like you've got a lot of expertise and a lot of good things that you're willing to share with people. What would be the best way for someone to to reach out to you and learn more?

Misha: 25:08

Yeah. So I'm on LinkedIn. You can reach out to me there. You can drop onto either my personal profile, which is just Misha Agular or Agular Advisory and Consulting as the page. And then you're also welcome to send me an email, which is [email protected].

Stephen: 25:22

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being a guest on Proactional Hustle

Misha: 25:26

Thank you.

Stephen: 25:26

Misha. I learned a lot, and so I really, really appreciate it. And I hope people get as much out of this episode as I did. And, yeah, we're we're looking forward to keeping up with you, and hopefully, you know, some people will, will learn some things.

Misha: 25:41

I hope so. Thanks for having me on the show.