Jason Taylor 0:00

I'm grateful to have Neville Corbeth in the studio today. Neville is the vice president of sales at NFI Canada and has spent his career building high-performing teams, driving strategic initiatives, growing companies, and getting them to a different place. He's led multi-million dollar divisions, coached national key account teams, and exceeded sales targets. Big thing about Neville, though, is he's passionate about developing people, driving culture, learning leadership, expanding leadership, helping leadership along, and uh increasing performance in very complex organizations. Neville, thanks for coming on the podcast today.

Nevil Corbeth 0:36

Thanks for having me, Jason. Appreciate it.

Jason Taylor 0:38

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We need to hear your voice and full transparency. Neville and I have worked together in a past life, and I always got something from Neville. He's a leader that doesn't panic, he stays cool, and he kind of assesses the situation before he actually gives you his kind of thought process on it. So, Neville, I'm pretty pumped to have you on the show today.

Nevil Corbeth 0:56

No, I'm looking forward to it. You know, I've watched a bunch of your podcasts, and it's pretty impressive what you've done. So congrats to you too, man.

Jason Taylor 1:02

Yeah, appreciate you. So, Neville, let's get right into it. So you've been with different companies, different industries, different sectors. So you've been able to lead multiple sales teams across multiple companies and countries. What's your approach to building a high performance team culture from the ground up?

Nevil Corbeth 1:18

Yeah, it's not always easy when you're dealing across different borders, different personalities, different ways of doing business. But the one consistent thing I always try to do is like have one scoreboard, one mission for everybody. So if you have a common goal with everybody across the two countries, so in my case, it's always been Canada and the US, everybody's on the same page. Now, I am a big believer in you need to have some sort of camaraderie, but also have a little bit of competition. So friendly competition is never a bad thing. So in my most recent company, um, before the job I was at, we had the US division, we had the Canadian division, we had national key accounts. We sort of pivoted them against each other with some friendly competition and banter that goes on with that, of course.

Jason Taylor 2:04

Yeah, exactly. In sales, great salespeople love competition, right? There's I'm sure I always say when a list goes out, a great salesperson, they look at two places. First top of the list, then they look at the bottom of the list. So they pray to God they're at the top, they pray to God they're not at the bottom, and if they're middle, they think, okay, how can I figure out a way to inch my way up to get to where I need to go, right?

Nevil Corbeth 2:23

If they're good, Jason, if they're good.

Jason Taylor 2:25

Yeah, exactly. If they're good. If they're not, then we have another discussion along the way. 100%. Let's let's talk about that because when we're talking about targets and ambitious goals, how do you balance hitting the ambitious targets while maintaining a positive and sustainable team culture?

Nevil Corbeth 2:42

Yeah, I I guess from my standpoint, I think business isn't rocket science, right? I'm not I'm not all about making things super complex. It's really to me, and this was the secret of my success at Labat when I worked there, it's all about making your calls and then following through. If you do those two things, good things will happen for you, definitely.

Jason Taylor 3:02

Yeah.

Nevil Corbeth 3:03

So that's kind of one of the things I always preach. I also say, you know, I never sort of rely on one big deal, depending on what role you're in. If you're in a hunter type of role, you can't just go, oh, I've got this one coming. You got to always constantly be working that pipeline and making sure that you and your team are doing that depending on whatever role you're in, right? So that that's always a big part of it for me, for sure, in terms of how you hit your goals.

Jason Taylor 3:28

Yeah, absolutely. I love what you just said there about the big goal, because there are a lot of people that the leader just they put it all on black, and you're just like, no, the red might come up. So let's move the chips around the board a bit so we can help ourselves, right?

Nevil Corbeth 3:39

Yeah, it it's funny. You know, I look at the business I'm in now, and we're dealing with Fortune 500 companies, like the biggest of the big. And you know, the deals are large, the stakes are large, and you you can hit your target with one account, but that account might take you a year. And if you're banking on that account hitting, and then it doesn't hit, what's your, you know, your other plan? What's part B? What's plan B? So that's kind of you you can't just put it on all on that one. You got to really be diversified and have a bunch of options.

Jason Taylor 4:11

So what you just said there is from you've gained that through experience. So let's talk about experience for a second. So if you could look back on one lesson that you learned about leadership early in your career that still shapes how you lead today, what would that one lesson be?

Nevil Corbeth 4:26

So one lesson on leadership that well, from my standpoint, it I guess it really boils down to what your leadership style is. So from my standpoint, I've always been a leader who listens and will take the time to get to know his people. So from my standpoint, the secret to my success is really that you've got to listen to what your people are saying, you've got to work with them and try and help them to be the best that they can be. So to do that isn't always easy. I've always believed, and this may sound a little harsh, I make sure that you take care of your A players because those are the ones that are gonna deliver the goods. Those are the ones that to me are gonna make it happen. So I always make sure those guys are happy, they're doing well, and I've given them the support they need. It's not to say I won't help somebody who's struggling, but those people, you sure they have to be coached. But they've also got to want to be coached. And you have to make sure that you take care of the really good, strong players, work with the lesser lights, let's call it. And if they improve, then they become a stronger player and they'll be happy for it. But it's it to me, those are a couple of things that I've kind of always done from a leadership standpoint.

Jason Taylor 5:38

I like what you said there because I work with a lot of a lot of leaders. And one of my key beliefs in coaching is a lot of times leaders spend so much time on the C and the D players, and that's okay. They need to be coached as well. But what happens is don't kid yourself, the A player actually sees, hey, why is he spending all his time with that C and D player when I'm out here, you know, absolutely crushing targets right now? I'm out here doing the company good, I'm engaged, I'm performing. And sometimes leaders will say, Oh, you know, let Sally, don't even worry about her. She's that kind of a performer, let her go. But Sally still wants coaching. And I often compare it to a hockey bench or a baseball bench, because I know you coach a lot of baseball, is you still see those star players coming off. You still see Connor McDavid come off, and the coach whispers something in his ear for sure. Right? And Neville, it might be, you know, that was the best shift I've ever seen in my life, right? But but that's still coaching, just recognizing and making sure that he knows, hey, I I need more of that, right?

Nevil Corbeth 6:34

No, a hundred percent. And yeah, it's funny you mentioned baseball. And I'm sure you know who Josh Naylor is.

Jason Taylor 6:40

Yeah.

Nevil Corbeth 6:41

So I used to coach Josh back in the day. Josh was by far the best player on our team. Yeah. And from a coaching standpoint, he wasn't an easy person to coach because he was so talented and he was so far above the other players. Yeah. And we had very strong teams. But you know what? Every once in a while you had to take Josh aside. Hey, have you thought of this? Here's how you could be a better leader. You know, these people are all watching you. Like different things, different little anecdotes like that can go a long way. And I, you know, looking at some of the teams I've had, the strong guys are the ones that in the end, you know, it's the 80-20 rule, right?

Jason Taylor 7:15

Yeah.

Nevil Corbeth 7:16

So it's uh it's absolutely true.

Jason Taylor 7:18

Absolutely. So let's talk about baseball for a second. Because you've coached for over a decade now, right? Yeah. What parallels can you bring in that are common with coaching baseball and leading corporate teams?

Nevil Corbeth 7:29

Yeah, you have to prepare, let's just say. So as a coach, that was my role. If I had a tournament that I was going into, I was a pretty eager coach. Let's just call it that. Yeah. I was always trying to be on top of my game. I would go into other websites and try and scope out who the top players were on the next teams were playing. I also had, this is back in the day, I actually had a binder with every game I coached. And I would put where the guy was hitting the balls and all that and notes in it. And then before the game, I would open up my binder and do a bit of research on who we were playing and the guys to watch out for, all that. So really it boils down to preparation. You've got to be prepared. So yeah, goals are important and practicing is important, and that's, you know, something like that you can equate to like pipeline management. You gotta be prepared, you gotta manage your pipeline, and that's how you're gonna win. Everybody's got a role, right? So you've got your in baseball, you've got your closers, you got your starting pitchers, you got your physician players in sales, you have account managers, you have hunters, you have different roles like that. There's a lot of parallels for sure between the two.

Jason Taylor 8:40

Yeah, it's amazing how uh sports and business coincide a lot of times, right? Yeah, 100%. And I'll tell you from personal experience of having salespeople come to me and my company and whatnot, or going on a Zoom call or a Teams call with a salesperson, there is a difference between somebody who's prepared relentlessly and somebody who is just winging it. Yeah. And you almost, based on our backgrounds and based on leading teams and whatnot, you almost want to say, stop, stop, stop, stop. Just why don't we reschedule this call? You come back to me when you're prepared and we go from there. But you you don't, you let it play through. But it's amazing that even before the call, half hour, 15 minutes of prep work, you sound so much more prepped and educated for that call as opposed to just going in and saying the old, hey, how was the weekend? How you doing, right? Yeah.

Nevil Corbeth 9:29

You mentioned that. I read a lot of books, listen to a lot of audiobooks, all that sort of stuff. And you know, one of the big things that I've always tried to do, and it may seem foolish, but it works is you just get in front of the mirror and you and you um sit there and you have uh talk to the mirror and look at what you're doing, look at what you're saying. And it it really does work so that when you you do get in in front of an audience, you're prepared and you're not just winging it. Some people have that innate ability to wing it, but me, I gotta prepare a little for anything I do.

Jason Taylor 10:02

Yeah, and you know what, it it shows in everything you presented. I love the fact that all cars have Bluetooth now because people will think you're talking on the phone, but I could be rehearsing something before I before.

Nevil Corbeth 10:11

Exactly.

Jason Taylor 10:12

Right? So people think you're talking on the phone, but you could just be rehearsing your speech or your keynote or or your your conference, whatever.

Nevil Corbeth 10:19

Yeah, I've sat I've sat in my office and done the exact same thing, like pretending talking on a call, whatever, and nobody knows.

Jason Taylor 10:26

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. How do you identify or or cultivate leadership potential within your team members? How do you kind of see kind of what each person's about?

Nevil Corbeth 10:34

Yeah, I there's no strong and fast rule on that from my because it one of the things I've noticed, Jason, in my career is there's some guys who are really good at sales, and that's what they want to do, which to me that's great. You know, I not everybody wants to be the next guy. I had this one gentleman who worked for me at a Challenger, and he was one of our top salespersons. He wanted to become uh a manager, so I said, you know, okay, if that's what you really want, we'll make you sort of a player coach. So that's what we did. And he did that for about a year and he really didn't like it.

Jason Taylor 11:05

He did it.

Nevil Corbeth 11:06

He actually ended up leaving the company and going somewhere else. And you know, him and I are actually still good friends, but he he went somewhere where he just wanted to sell. He also got paid a bunch more, so I get it.

Jason Taylor 11:17

Yeah, for sure. You know, it's funny you say that because everybody always thinks, hey, the best salesperson should be the sales manager. Or, you know, they see this, and it's okay to say, you know what, I'm pretty happy in what I do right now, and I'm okay. Not everybody has to be the president of the company, right? No, exactly. And then turnover costs companies loads of money. Most people think turnover is, you know, I paid the guy this much times this many days or years that he was there. That's turn, no, that's not turnover. Turnover is actually how productive is the team right now? How efficient are we? How engaged are we? How does that drive culture? Culture drives our bottom line. And you know, I say to C-suite all the time, it's not a fluke or something lucky that happens that companies with great culture make more money than companies that don't have great culture, right? They work hard at it. They work really hard at it.

Nevil Corbeth 12:01

I talk sort of about those people that are happy to be there. But when it comes to cultivating a leader and seeing who those people are, I generally have found the the people who want to go to that next level, they'll they'll let you know. And it's up to you at that point to go, okay, is this something I'm willing to invest my time in to help them get to that next step? Or do they not have that ability? Maybe I steer them in a different direction. So it's it's really something that you listen, you hear what your people are saying. You can also tell if a person is a natural, somewhat of a natural leader, as I'd call it, somebody who wants to jump out and grab the horse by the rein, so to speak, and run with things. So there's no, again, no hard and fast rule, but those are some of the sort of things I always look for.

Jason Taylor 12:43

Yeah, and what's been consistent in every answer you've said, which I really appreciate and I like, is you you talk often about listening. Yeah. And I I think that's a skill. It's a muscle, right? It's a muscle. And I think sometimes that muscle can go weak sometimes if we don't practice it, right? And sometimes it's just okay to sit back. I don't have to speak right away. I'm gonna digest what you said, I'm gonna ponder, I'm gonna reflect before I actually respond.

Nevil Corbeth 13:07

Yeah, absolutely.

Jason Taylor 13:08

So let's talk about growth. And during periods of rapid growth, which you've experienced in many different positions, like scaling your logistics, teams, et cetera. How do you ensure the company culture doesn't get lost? Because when pressure increases, sometimes you get that person saying, Oh, we used to do it this way, or never used to be like that. So, how do you keep that company culture alive and well when there is rapid growth and we have to act a bit differently?

Nevil Corbeth 13:32

Yeah, culture is something that, you know, I I look uh again, just reflecting on my challenger days. We were focused on people, customers, profit. Those are the three things that our president really pushed down on us. And if you stay true to the values of the company, so the take care of your people, make sure your customers are taken care of, they're being listened to, you're doing what they need, and you're you're obviously producing for them. And then it was the profit was the third segment. The money takes care of itself. So yeah, you got to make sure you're doing well. But really, yeah, the culture shouldn't change just because you've gotten bigger. You should be able to actually enhance your culture because arguably you can bring more people in who can help out, more HR type of people, and more strong leaders that can, as long as you're getting the same message across to everyone. I think it that's really how you is what's key. Yeah, and and I often say winning's fun, right? Oh, 100%. Winning takes care of a lot of uh problems, that's for sure, you know. Yeah. And you see that in the transportation industry. When times are good, they're really good. But when the market goes a little south, then all of a sudden everyone starts to, you know, okay, we got to cut back here, got to cut back here. And sometimes I think that's what ends up hurting you more. You know, you pull back too much, you're not spending, you're not as aggressive, and that can hurt you too.

Jason Taylor 14:59

Yeah. I often say uh sales hides all sins. Yeah. Right? 100%. It is evident when when when sales are going well, we kind of look the other way or we kind of turn a blind eye to something that might be happening. But uh yeah, it's it's sales and winning helps culture for sure. Well, can you share an example of a time you turned a struggling a team or employee into a success story and and what your approach was?

Nevil Corbeth 15:23

Yeah, I'm just trying to think of uh somebody who was struggling. Yeah, okay, I don't see any names, obviously, but I had I had a gentleman who he was a decent salesperson. I could see a lot of potential in him. So at that point in time, he would have been let's call him a C player. Okay. But I saw the potential, kind of like a diamond in the rough type of person. So at that point in time, if you see the potential, and really from my standpoint, again, you can coach a person and teach them how to learn whatever product you're selling. You can't really teach the aggressiveness and enthusiasm and all that sort of stuff. So from my standpoint, if I've got a person who's going out there, they're making their calls, they're doing, you know, I'm big on CRMs, they're inputting their data into the CRMs, they're doing the stuff they're supposed to be doing. They've had a few opportunities, just haven't been able to hit on them. That's a person who needs some help. And so, so those are the types of people I'll work with. So I had a gentleman who he was in that camp, and I was able to sort of coach him. I asked him to bring me on a couple of calls, showed him sort of how I would work some stuff. So kind of brought him along that way. And before too long, he kind of learned the way that we did business in our organization. And a lot of the times in companies I've been in, you you need to really work internally on the sale as much as externally. So you sell it, you sell it internally, you sell it externally, and you know, that person really progressed over the years. He ended up becoming a director for me and uh oh wow, he went lights out.

Jason Taylor 17:03

So that's great. Uh, don't you love it when you see somebody like that and you just think, you know what, they just need a nudge, they just need some help. And kudos to him too for taking the coaching, right? Because some people you're just like, hey, I'm I'm not doing this because I have all the time in the world. I'm doing this because I'm trying to get you to a better place so you can you can actually enjoy work a little more and and figure this out. You said something there about behaviors and you were talking about aggressiveness. I love that because I'm a big believer in people have drives. If I'm driven for something, that means I need something. And if I need something, I'm gonna behave a certain way, right? So, you know, in somebody that is proactive, I know that they need independence, but they also are impatient for results. So it's you know, that's your typical hunter sales rap. Yeah, right. So it's evident that you kind of see that and you're able to pick it out, which is nice because a lot of leaders kind of just don't understand why this person is behaving the way they do, right? No, 100%, 100% agree with you. How do you um celebrate the wins and recognize your team in ways that genuinely build morale and loyalty? But not, I'm gonna add something to that, not monetary.

Nevil Corbeth 18:06

Yeah.

Jason Taylor 18:07

So it's easy to hey, it's easy to make people morale go up in loyalty when, you know, here's a big fat check, right? But when you don't have that big fat check or that kind of money that you can transfer them, how do you how do you celebrate those wins along the way to to make sure that those two buckets are growing?

Nevil Corbeth 18:24

Yeah, and money's great. Rec uh money's always, you know, everyone says that's what everyone wants is money. Recognition goes a long way. So in a meeting, it can be as simple as, hey, so-and-so did a great job with this. Tell me how you did that and explain to your peers and you give them a bit of recognition. That goes a long way. With my management team at my last job, I have a boat. So I said, guys, we're gonna go have a meeting in Point Edward where my boat is. We're gonna have a meeting there for a day, and then the next day we're gonna go out on my boat and we'll have a fun day and uh have a good time. So, you know, that was a little innovative, I guess. But you know, those are the types of things like I'm putting myself out there, I'm showing them I'm a real person and those types of things I think go a long way.

Jason Taylor 19:10

I love that stuff, yeah. And I'm a big believer that people remember adventure and experiences, right? They don't always remember what you gave them, but they always remember how they felt when they were around you in a certain situation, and that that comes from experience and adventure along the way.

Nevil Corbeth 19:24

Yeah. Well, yeah, let me throw it back at you. You got to go on some pretty good trips to uh uh uh interesting beer events and different things like that. I'm sure you love those. Those are all.

Jason Taylor 19:35

And I remember those. I don't just remember them, I remember certain conversations I had with people when we were in pubs. I remember certain scenes in the street, I remember all that stuff because again, you're right, it was an adventurer's experience. Yeah, people live for that stuff. In our company, we do something called Presidents Club. And if you hit your target, we take you and your spouse away for a fun getaway for four days, and we like to actually reward that, right? Yeah. I I run one of those at uh Labat. So hey, there you go. Good for me. It's pretty cool stuff. Neville, looking back at your career, what would you say is your core philosophy for leading people and shaping culture in any organization?

Nevil Corbeth 20:14

I'd say again, it boils down to openness and honesty. So when I'm dealing with a person, I'm just gonna tell you the way it is. It you might not always like it, but hopefully you will respect it and you'll appreciate the fact that I had the guts to say something to your face. And uh it's just the way I am. I I'll I I will tell you the way that it is. And you know, I think that's gone, that's worked for me very well over my years because when I left my last company, I had 25 people that report into me. Every one of them reached out and said, Hey, it was great working with you. I really enjoyed my time with you. You're a good leader, and you know, you taught me something. That's something else I always try to, like I always tried to teach. I've got a lot of experience. Lord knows I've uh learned some things the hard way over the years.

Jason Taylor 21:04

Yeah.

Nevil Corbeth 21:04

But if you as a leader or as a coach in baseball, whatever it is, if you share those experiences and you become a real person to people, they want to approach you, they want to talk to you, and uh they're happy to work with you.

Jason Taylor 21:18

Yeah, absolutely. I was assuming you were still in your 20s. That's why when you all this experience, I was thinking, how does he have always this in the 20s? Yeah. I wish. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Nev, you've been more than generous with your time today. So I just want to close it up with a question. And if you were speaking to a young leader today, somebody who's just come into university or they're just in their first job and whatnot, what would be the one piece of advice that somebody senior like yourself would say, hey, you know what? This is what I think you need to kind of hone in on or do to make sure that you can have a really good career and and kind of climb those ranks. What would that piece of advice be for me?

Nevil Corbeth 21:54

So from my standpoint, it would be and I I taught my kids this. I said, listen, don't learn things the hard way. What you want to do, you want to listen to what somebody who's got experience says and listen to what they say because it might save you a lot of grief, it might save you a lot of time. But take it, take it with a grain of salt, because not every not every person out there is the smartest person out there. So they might give you advice. It could be bad. So listen to what they have to say. Don't learn things the hard way, but um, you know, take it with a grain of salt.

Jason Taylor 22:25

And isn't it amazing how you wrapped up this conversation with talking about listening again? I absolutely love yeah, I absolutely love that trait about you. So Neville, thank you for your time today. I know you're a busy executive in a in a in a big company and whatnot. So I appreciate your time and I appreciate you coming on the podcast today. If you love that session and that conversation as much as I did, would love to have you join our People Playbook community in the link below.