The leadership side of sales
“When you tell people you’re in sales, there’s always this element of what aren’t you telling me?” Words from this week’s podcast guest, Vice President of VÖGELE Products at the Wirtgen Group and Chair of NAPA’s Associate Member Council. Brodie Hutchins. With decades of experience, Brodie shares how you can remove sales apprehension by changing sales to service. By applying strategy, emotional intelligence, and patience, Brodie highlights how you can become a trusted and successful sales leader in our industry.
What sets Brodie apart is his clear philosophy: sales is more than numbers—it’s about people. Throughout the conversation, he shares strategies for leading successful sales teams, especially during down cycles, and emphasizes the importance of motivating through clarity. He explains why technical knowledge is essential, but why soft skills—like listening, communicating value over price, and putting honesty first—are what build long-term customer relationships and industry credibility.
Brodie’s perspective is a reminder that successful sales leadership is more than closing deals, it’s about building lasting relationships. Listen now to learn his insights.
Here’s a small look at our conversation with Brodie. Be sure to listen on your favorite streaming platform to improve your leadership skills. Listen now.
What metrics do you use to track success and are those different for you versus the people on your team?
The ultimate measure is market share. It’s a small world and an even smaller industry. We’ve got really good data on all of the types of equipment that we sell. We know how many different products and segments are going into different places, and we want a certain share position in each of those regions. That math indicates our success, or lack thereof, but there are a lot of softer things on there too that we look at. Is this same customer buying more of the same or are they repeating? Did they have a good experience with that first machine? Were their ownership costs where they wanted them to be? Were they able to get technicians and parts when they wanted them? Were they able to get their crews trained or refreshed in a timely manner? In a lot of cases, what kind of incentives did that machine help the crew earn as far as a smoothness award. Any of the awards that NAPA gives, all the way through, including the Sheldon G Hayes Award, if your equipment’s part of achieving some of those successes, then we count that as a success as well.
Is there a book or mentor that has impacted your career journey?
I’ve got some phrases and little tidbits of advice from some really great mentors over the 35-plus years that I’ve been doing this. I can’t point to any one instance, but there are some principles that you can formulate based on various experiences. One is just timely communication. You know, follow up with somebody before they have to call and look for an update. Even if it’s a ‘Hey, I don’t have an answer yet, but I’m still looking at it.’ People appreciate that. I think to keep people informed even that you’re not selling to, but people that are part of that process. In the case of manufacturing, you’ve got to get everybody with some level of ownership in it. Whether it’s the engineers or the parts department or the people assembling the machines. Creating ownership, creating this we’re all part of it kind of thing and not just a sales-only piece. Sales is the result of all of those other things going right. Let your character and your actions speak for you. You don’t want to be known as a hot head or someone who overreacts to something. You want to think about it, digest it, and ask yourself if somebody were to replay this right now, what would that look like in five years? How do I make it so that I would not cringe if I watched it?
