“Slow down to speed up,” says Phillip Gerard, Vice President of Americas Electrical Sales at Panduit. In this episode of Sales Lead Dog, Gerard dives into his people-focused sales techniques, and how he learned that pushing forward doesn’t work if you’re leaving your whole team behind. And why he focused to train the team.
Gerard’s career in sales started early. His father was a salesman in the roofing industry, and he often joined his dad on calls. As a teenager, he sold jewelry door-to-door to support a local charity that worked with disabled adults.
When he talks about his career, he credits many mentors, who taught him that people are at the heart of not only being a good salesman, but being a good sales leader.
Wed, 11/18 12:50PM • 33:38
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
sales, crm, people, understand, thinking, early, result, leader, questions, career, delivering, mentors, called, team, process, customer, learned, leadership, sales process, selling
Speakers of Discussion Train the team
Phillip Girard, Intro/Outro, Christopher Smith
Intro/Outro 00:01
Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog Podcast, hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert, Christopher Smith, talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack. Listen to find out how the best of the best achieve success with their team and CRM technology. And remember, unless you were the lead dog, the view never changes.
Christopher Smith 00:28
Welcome to another episode of Sales Lead Dog. Today we have joining us, Phillip Girard. Welcome to the show, Phillip.
Phillip Girard 00:36
Thanks, Chris. It’s a pleasure to be here. I appreciate it very much. I’m excited to talk to you about this topic.
Christopher Smith 00:42
That’s awesome. So Philip, tell us a little bit about yourself and your company.
Phillip Girard 00:48
Yeah, so I’m a long tenured sales leader, growing up in the electronic and electrical industries and serviced a number of different customer segments. I’m currently Vice President of Sales for the Americas in the electrical group of Panduit. Panduit is the premier provider of wire management solutions into network and industrial electrical solutions. So we’ve got everything from you know, cable management, and you know, data center accessories, etc. So one of the premier names, of course.
Christopher Smith 01:26
Oh, yeah, anyone who works in data centers, anything even remote to that knows who Panduit is.
Phillip Girard 01:31
Yeah.
Christopher Smith 01:32
It’s a very large company as well, correct?
Phillip Girard 01:34
Yeah, no, definitely we are and I joined about a year ago, and the brand recognition that they had coming in, and the things I thought about them were not only confirmed, but it accentuated by you know, just the the innovation and you know, the what the what panduit has done and continues to do as far as innovation and in wire and wire management.
Christopher Smith 01:57
That’s terrific. Tell us about, you know, thinking back over your career, tell us about the person who’s had the most impact on your success?
Phillip Girard 02:09
Well, I mean, I could point to a number of places, I mean, my early in my formidable years, you know, my dad was in sales, and my dad sold roofing and siding, and I remember doing sales calls with him on occasion. And so that certainly formed a lot of ideas and whatnot. So he was a definitely a, you know, formed early ideas about what sales was all about. I’ve had a number of mentors throughout my career that, that helped me learn at the next level, you know, really about not just the, the the day to day selling and accountant level selling, but, you know, really developing sales, leadership and, you know, skills in that regard. So, I really had quite a few mentors, throughout the, throughout the years.
Christopher Smith 02:59
That’s terrific. I love hearing about people when they say, you know, my dad was from, it’s the same for me, my dad was in IT and, and, you know, it’s nice to have that as your foundation. What’s your favorite thing about your career?
Phillip Girard 03:17
Well, I mean, the, the industry that I’ve worked in has given a great deal to me, not just financially, I mean, I’ve, you know, had a lot of great success with it, you know, in the in the industry, but I think the most rewarding thing is, is how I’ve developed as a person and how I’ve learned to understand, you know, because it’s not just the selling aspects of it, it’s the people aspects of it that’s attractive. And, you know, even in early sales opportunities, it really was that attraction towards the people. So I’d say that the most fulfilling thing for me is, is you know, how I’ve grown as an individual and my, you know, continued growth in just learning about, you know, who are people and, you know, why do people do what they do and you know, it when you’re mentoring salespeople and and when you’re talking to customers, it’s not, you know, it’s all about that sort of listening and learning and really understanding that the people, so.
Christopher Smith 04:14
Awesome. I asked this question never, but it’s one of my favorite questions, what are the top three things that have helped you the most in your career?
Phillip Girard 04:25
So I would say one of the most significant things and I was gonna sound silly, but it was having children, because having children makes you have a different perspective on the the impact that your behavior and the things that you were doing are having. That was the big influence on on, you know, on my leadership skills is just recognizing that, you know, the same care that you put into speaking with your children, you know, your, everything you say is a leaders role is also influential. So that was a certainly a major change there. I’ve also had some executive coaching. And I don’t know if I should mention the gentleman’s name, but,
Christopher Smith 05:06
If you want, that’s fine! More than happy to plug people.
Phillip Girard 05:09
Yeah, yeah, no. Steven, I’ll just leave it at Steven for now. But he had a very, very strong impact on me. He taught me one of the most important things that I’ve learned that I try to pass on to my leaders that reported to me now and people that I’m mentoring, which is slow down to speed up, that the result is better if you take the time to bring people into the fold and help, you know, have them give the inputs and be part of the solution. And that was a big learning for me, because I think you have a tendency to, you know, any one of us that are successful, we’re successful, because we’re results-oriented, and we want to drive to get things done. And sometimes we forget that, look, there’s a whole group of people around here who may not be at the same place you are. And if you take the time to get them there, bring them into the vision and then kind of grow them. I think that’s that, you know, that that’s probably the biggest, the biggest impact that you know, been in my career, for sure.
Christopher Smith 06:08
That’s awesome. You said something there that was pretty powerful. I’d like you to repeat it again, just to make sure people really understand that. The slow down to speed up, could you see that, again, just to, let’s emphasize that. I think that’s really an important concept.
Phillip Girard 06:25
Yeah. And what that means is, is that if you get if you get focused on the result, you can drive forward very rapidly, and you can drive forward very aggressively towards the goal, because you know, that as a leader, at the end of the day, we’re all here for the results. I mean, you know, all the other stuff we do is important, and we got to be aligned with the culture, we got to be aligned with the strategy and the plan. But if we’re not delivering results, then it’s all for naught. And so you know, the key, the key for delivering that result is to having the entire team around that. So sometimes you have to take a minute and say, I already know the direction that could get us there or a direction. I won’t even say “the” because I you know, that’s another thing that I’ve learned over the years is that there’s no “the” there’s no right. There’s no wrong, there’s no good, there’s no bad, there’s, this is an approach. Will it work? Yes, it will. Okay, let’s try it. But if you do that with it with your team, and you bring your team along, and not just you know, your team of direct reports, when I mean, any department, any external collaboration that you need, in order to get done, what you need to get done, if you take the time to understand their needs, take the time to understand their desires, it’ll it will slow you down in terms of delivering that result, but the result will be much more sustainable. And it will be much more positive, much more powerful. And the people around you will all feel that they’re part of that change. And that, you know, that was a very important lesson to me. And that’s that’s what I mean, when I say, you know, slow down to speed up.
Christopher Smith 07:57
Terrific. If you, shifting gears for just a little bit, if you’re with a group of your peers, you’re all sharing stories, lots of laughters smiles about the craziest sales story you have, what’s your story?
Phillip Girard 08:14
There’s one that always comes to mind. The there was, it was fun. We had a, we had a meeting with a customer and we were trying to move them down a path. And they brought a vice president in who basically came in and said, “Look, I’ve got 15 minutes, wow me,” and just kind of derailed the entire process we had planned and we were under. And even his team kind of looked, “Whoa, okay.” Because we had, you know, we planned an hour, but he came in and kind of preempted and said, “No, in 15 minutes, if I’m not, if I’m not ready to go, we’re out of here.” So. So we basically shifted our conversation to try to you know, because typically when I’m in a situation when talking to a customer, I want to ask a bunch of questions about you know, what’s important to you? And, you know, and how do I move this forward based on impact that I know that you’ll feel, and we didn’t get the chance to do that. So he just wanted us to, you know, let’s launch right into this. So, so we started going down the path of doing the explanation, and the fire alarm went off. And there was somebody had called in a bomb scare of a disgruntled employee called in a bomb scare. And every one of us had to leave the building, and go to a designated place outside, and we had to stay there. So we had him now until this bomb scare was over, which was two and a half hours. So we stood in the parking lot in a much more casual setting. And we got to ask the questions, talk through what we needed to. That was the best win of our lives. I remember I had one of our technical guys, Tony, with me. And we just, you know, at the end of that call, we were a high five and so like, we were we were about to crash and burn. We were gone and we just got the, you know, delivered the, you know, the best gift ever, which was more time. And I a an environment where he couldn’t go anywhere anyway. So he might as well take some time and listen and talk. So.
Christopher Smith 10:12
I need to remember that next time if that ever happens to me text one of my team members go outside, pull the fire alarm!
Phillip Girard 10:19
I wouldn’t recommend that. But I certainly would say that that that was probably one of the most memorable sales calls ever.
Christopher Smith 10:27
Oh, my that. Yeah, that’s a great one. That’s great. How did you get your start in sales? And what is that done? In or how’s that impacted your role as a sales leader?
Phillip Girard 10:40
Yeah, the truth is, is that I as far back as I can remember, I mentioned that I, you know, even as a as a lab mic, I went on sales calls with my father, and I watched him sell. And so when I was a kid, I would always, you know, I remembered, I had a job when I was a teenager, and I went and sold jewelry door to door with a team of people, they drop in a neighborhood, and you’d go and sell jewelry, it was, it was jewelry that was crafted by special needs, folks. So it was, you know, a charity type thing. And so early on, I was doing, you know, doing selling, and I think that, you know, I, I’ve always had a passion for it. And, you know, like, whenever we had, you know, fundraisers or things like that, I would always, you know, go out and earn the most, and I, you know, I, you know, I, I would make sure that I sold the most candy bars or, you know, got, you know, got the most raffle tickets or whatever, because, you know, I just had that competitive spirit. I’m a middle child. So maybe that’s some of the competitive drive comes from, you know, being in that center of the family always trying to, you know, drive your, drive your position. So, yeah, I would say it’s kind of always been in, in my blood. And, you know, I’ve done it for, you know, from as far back as I can remember. And then I, you know, kind of when, you know, once you decide, okay, it’s time to get into the workforce, and you know, it’s time to go do something, you know, sales is just a natural migration for me.
Christopher Smith 12:06
What do you wish you were taught when you got that first job?
Phillip Girard 12:10
The power of questions. I think, early on in everybody’s career, we think that we need to explain, and what’s much more powerful is when we get the customer to explain, when we ask the questions that allow them to understand that they have a genuine need, and they understand the impact of that. That’s something I think that you know, the sooner that a salesperson kind of can build that into their repertoire, the, the more successful they can be, because it’s very, very powerful to, to ask just simple questions about you know, and there’s tons of methods that teach that, you know, customer centric, selling and spin and QB, the question based selling and there’s, you know, any value based selling any number of those that, but that, the concept’s all the same, which is really seek to understand before, you know, your advocation. Your advocation should be a very small piece, and it should be around, they came to the realization, they needed it on their own, and all you’re doing is helping them get the solution. So, that was something that, you know, in the early career, we were always brushing up on, you know, how do I talk about the features and benefits? And, you know, that sort of thing? And I learned very quickly, it’s like, how do I, how do I equate this to the customers business. And where I learned that is, we had a select group of people, which I was one of, who were trained and authorized to do a total cost of ownership analysis that when I worked with a electronics distributor, and because of that, training it the whole thing was, let’s go in and ask them questions about their operation. So you can learn where you know, where the points where you can provide, you know, the supply chain services that are going to help them so us as a distributor, you know, can solve those problems, but we can also put a number on it and meet that as a financial analysis to say, you know, this is what you gain as a result of doing that based on the values we bring. And that’s when the kind of the light kicked on. For me, it was like, Man, you know, I’m not those weren’t selling offer opportunities, people were bringing me in to talk to them about their operation. And I got more powerful selling opportunities out of that than I did out of, you know, ever sitting down in what was considered a sales call. So, you know, that’s probably the thing that I would say is most will give the most impact to young salespeople is just understand that the power of questions and you know, asking questions to get a sale, it seems that it seems awkward until you learn it, and then it seems so natural.
Christopher Smith 14:34
Was it a tough decision for you to transition from sales to being a sales leader?
Phillip Girard 14:40
It was and for the reasons I talked about earlier about you know, so you know, that that slow down to speed up concept was, you know, I proved my worth as a sales individual and I was a high performance individual. And then as I started growing, I just, you know, I wanted my career to advance and I wanted, you know, more of those sales positions, but I have to say that early in my career, I was not that slow down to speed up guy I was guys, we’re going in this direction, we’re going and, you know, I received a lot of feedback. You asked about mentors, a couple of my very strong mentors to my career, you know, really spent the time explaining to me like, you know, you’re getting tremendous results, but you leave in a wake behind you, and you don’t need to do that. And that, that was the I think the, you know, kind of a really a turning point for me, but so I always had my eye towards, you know, doing more and growing my career and night in and it’s making that change, you know, from the individual contributor, well, you’ve got to now understand that it’s the power of the team that matters, not the not the power of the result you’re delivering. And if you can get everybody on your team that much better, that that’s going to be a reflection. And I think part of that, too, is is that you’ve got to change what you consider to be the result you’re delivering. So things like employee engagement scores, and you know, employee satisfaction, are right up there with revenue and profit and pipeline and you know, targets and you know, things like that. I mean, because if that team feels strongly about where they are as a team, from a chemistry perspective, they’re going to deliver that result for you. So and then it’s not like you sit back and wait for the result, you still got to drive to the result. But encouraging mentoring and developing the team and their skill set makes the results happen.
Christopher Smith 16:29
Is there something, when you got that first leadership job, is there something you strongly believed that you now know, was just flat out wrong?
Phillip Girard 16:38
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, again, and it is in that same vein, you know, that I was making decisions and, and micromanaging things that, that I didn’t need to be engaged in and involved in. And, you know, frankly, I could, I could see the impact that it had, after the fact. Would’ve been nice to get to know it ahead of time. But you know, you know how it works is you’ve got to skin your knees before you realize it. Okay, I’m not going to step over that anymore. So yeah,
Christopher Smith 17:11
I’m sorry, I talked over you. Go ahead.
Phillip Girard 17:13
No, I just said that, that was just the some of the early learnings that you get that you get that big shot you’re in, you get your chance, and you’re in there, and all of a sudden, you go, “I’m not getting my getting the result, I thought I would. I, I thought I would just get up here and show them what to do.” And not quite.
Christopher Smith 17:30
Right. I think that’s a tough thing for most people, when they transition into a leadership role is understanding that you need to give people space, that micromanaging really is not going to help. I think that’s a common mistake.
Phillip Girard 17:47
Well, I think, too, that it that goes back into like talent development, and you know, team selection, train the team, and that sort of thing, because now would you start to realize is that not everybody is going to be the same at the same things. They’re all going to bring different strengths to the party. And you know, and quite frankly, we had a program that one of the places I worked, it was called Pathways to Leadership. And it was a management simulation process. It was a three-day process that was grueling for the individuals. And you were either nominated by your leader or, you know, asked to be, you know, to be part of it, because you aspire to be in leadership. And and I was one of the facilitators and Raiders for this. So I, you know, we, our job was to, you know, make a rating of the individual, are they ready now, ready a year from now or not recommended for leadership? I saw a lot of people come into that, that thought they wanted to be in leadership and said, “Hey, if this is if this simulation is real in any way at all, I’d rather be an individual contributor.” And that was a lot of learning that where I started to understand is you got to be able to separate the difference between those people that may be moderate performers, but have greater capability in leadership or in other roles in the company. And then you got those pure, hey, this is a an individual who’s going to be an individual contributor for for the long haul. And that’s not a bad thing. Let’s make sure they’re happy. Make sure they’re motivated, give them the tools they need, enable them, but let’s not worry about hey, they’re your best performance. Are they your next sales leader? They may not be. Or they may not be a fit for that at all.
Christopher Smith 19:20
Yeah, I think that’s a key component of being a leader. What are those attributes you look for when you’re thinking about nominating someone or taking them through a grooming process for leadership role? What do you look for?
Phillip Girard 19:34
So for me, the impact that people have around around them is a is a pretty clear indicator. And look, this is not in any way meant to disparaging about, you know, those go get them sales people, but you know that there are there are those really solid performers that do leave a little bit of a wake. And they, they you know, when the organization doesn’t move to the direction they want, they get excited. You know, salespeople are expressive by nature, and they, you know, they let their opinions be known. And they, you know, they, so they can really cause some friction within the organization if they don’t drive, you know, properly. So I think, if I look at, if I’m looking at the difference between other, you know, here’s other people that as the as they’re operating and acting, they’re asking that question like, “Look, I’ve run across the same thing multiple times, how can I solve that problem so we never have to deal with that again?” Those are your sort of leaders, I think, you know, the, the early indicator of who the people that need to be, you know, groomed for leadership, and who were the ones that you, you coach and mentor to get the constituency group that best that you can have behind them? And not, you know, be too disruptive. But also make sure to turn them loose and let them be the hunter that they are so.
Christopher Smith 20:49
Oh, yeah, yeah. When you are, you know, one of the things I would like to talk about with my guests are success habits. What are your success habits that you try to pass down to your team?
Phillip Girard 21:10
There’s a number of them, I think first and foremost is look at the things that are going to be impactful. Try to understand what the things that are going to be impactful, and spend your time there. Because that, you know, there’s this quadrant system that that somebody introduced me to early on, with the axises of urgent and important. And there’s this quadrant of things that are not urgent, but they’re very important that where people spend a limited amount of their time. And I’ve actually got a graph that I share with people, you know, and say, Look, you know, you’re building a strategy for your account or for your territory, whatever you’re doing, there’s only so many things that you’re going to be able to get done in the day. And if you want to go home fulfilled, and say, “I got something done, I felt great,” you’re going to need to force yourself into that category of not urgent but important. And you know, the unfortunate thing, where we have to spend our time is in the urgent and important, that’s the, I got to get this quote out, you know, this expedite has to happen, I need to do this thing, or I’m going to lose my customer, those you’ve got to service. The problem is that we also spend a lot of time in the not important but urgent because they’re coming at us. And we can check the box and get that good feeling about, Okay, I got that done. I feel good that I solved that problem. And you look back and say, but did that help me forward my strategy? So I spent a lot of time with my leadership team making and train the team sure that they have a sound strategy. And then I asked them, look at the activities that you’re that you’re spending your time on? Are they forwarding your strategy? Are they just reactions to things that are happening and and as people move more to that quadrant of the not urgent but important I watch them succeed much more.
Christopher Smith 22:56
As you know, our firm is really big around process sales process as well as other processes throughout the organization enabled by CRM technology handle, it just went through a major project, to to re-engineer your sales process. Can you talk about what was it that triggered that? And what some of the business issues were that were driving that process?
Phillip Girard 23:21
Yeah, absolutely. And I do want to thank you, Chris, I know we didn’t end up with an engagement for you to, you know, do some of the work for us, because we have a you know, pretty strong internal team, but the consultation that you and I had was extremely helpful. And I, I do appreciate you know, you kind of looking over how I was thinking about it, and I’ve done other, I’ve done full CRM implementations at two other companies, this company had a CRM, the the issue that was was interesting was is that we really weren’t using it as anything other than, you know, kind of a repository for information that wasn’t being utilized in any way. So the biggest issue that that I see, you know, companies that the mistake that people make is they look and say, I’m going to put in a CRM because I’ve got a sales problem. And I always say, solve the sales problem first and understand, where’s there a lack of discipline? What does your sales process actually look like? What are the things that lead you to winning? And then have your CRM reflect your sales process. And you know, if you do it the other way around, you’re fooled into thinking that I’m going to turn the CRM in and all of a sudden my pipeline is going to go up and I’m going to be winning more business and the act the fact of it is, is that what you’re going to do is you’re going to have a clear reflection of the poor discipline and the poor poor process you have already so that so when I got to Japan to it, they, our network infrastructure group has a very strong utilization of the the CRM and not just the CRM but all of the tools the you know the Marketo and you know, the the early digital customer acquisition aspects of it inside sales, using tools to do, you know, account based marketing and, you know, lead generation, lead follow-up, etc. And they had a very strong adoption of it, their business is a little bit different, more project based, so it lent itself to that more naturally. But we also have lots of projects, and just, you know, an order of magnitude or our business, you know, is a very large, you know, private company. But we do this in, you know, little orders at a time. And so, you know, smaller, you know, $5, $10 thousand orders are very, very important to us. But we can’t track and manage each one of them. So you got to have a system that understands what’s the inertia behind that. So, basically, what I did is I took the best practices of the past that I had, but I didn’t, you know, I also see leaders make the mistake of coming in and saying, I did this before, therefore, we’re going to do this here, it’s like, “No, I’m going to actually try to understand what are the nuances of our sales process? Where do we succeed?” So I spent a lot of time in my early part of my career here at Panduit, traveling around talking to people listening to the customer, like, how do they interact with us? What does that look like? And then looking, going back and looking at saying, how did that like now get reflected in our pipeline? And, and then just really trying to understand that, so then we build out the process around? How do we want to happen? And what are the connection points. So best practice for me from a CRM is, is if you’re, if people have to operate within the CRM to get things done, then they’re going to be more apt to be in there working. So you’ve got to kind of drive the the process to happen within the tool, rather than you’re out here working the process, and you come in and reflect it in the tool. It’s like, okay, now I’m asking people to duplicate their effort. So how do I make those connection points in the in CRM that if you have to do this, like if I want to make an engineering request, I make it in CRM, and it goes to the person in engineering, that it makes the evaluation does the checklist to see if everything’s there, and all the interaction and transactions are happening there. So now we do things like connection points of email, and telephone and other things. So that, you know, I, the key for me is, is we don’t want to make it a burden for people we want their natural selling process to be happening in the background, they’re connecting that information to the CRM, so that you know we can, because where it’s really going is is predictive measures. If, yeah, I’ve got this massive pipeline, but how much of it do I really believe I’m going to close within certain windows? So we’re, we’re doing things like probability around, you know, closure window, and if something is 80% probable, and it’s going to close within this window, we didn’t have the means to be able to say, “Well, okay, was the proposal done? Have there been iterations of pricing?” or as you know, and if we didn’t, if we don’t see those things in an opportunity that you can pretty much be rest assured that you’re saying you’re gonna close in 60 days and you got an 80% probability, that’s most likely not going to happen, because you haven’t done any of the steps in the system that, you know, that demonstrates that we’ve been even quoting this. So that’s the type of stuff that, that’s what we’re moving towards is, is that, let’s get a little bit more predictive analysis around, you know, forecasting, let’s get a little bit you know, better about being able to come to the company in an SN o p process, and be able to say, I have this level of confidence in this value, these other things, we’re nurturing and working, but let’s make sure we start thinking about producing these products, we have a high degree of confidence, we’re gonna win them. Everything you said is spot on, I want to just yell, “Amen,” like five times, talking, because, you know, that’s exactly what our approach is, and I’m just a huge advocate around everything you said that, you know, it really is there to, probably not going to repeat this as elegantly as you said it, but you know, technology should be there CRM technology to really support the process of the person is doing naturally, you know, that it shouldn’t be a burden. Yeah, it should just be part of their normal flow of what they need to get done. And the tools just making it easier for me to do my job. No, absolutely. Yeah, not. And again, I remember our early conversation when I was, you know, not a little intimidated to come to you and say, Look, this is how I’m thinking about it in my like, way off base. And, you know, you kind of affirm for me that, you know, no, that’s, that’s the right approach. And, but but the steps that you walk me through in that process and the way that you question me, like I was just talking about, you know, Hey, are you thinking about this? And okay, what are you doing in this area and show me this piece? And as I, you know, as you and I were walking through it, you gave me the confidence to say, “Okay, you know, my experience tells me this is right, “and, you know, somebody with your expertise is also kind of looking at that. So, I appreciate that. And I think we were very like-minded in the approach that we were taking in that.
Christopher Smith 29:44
Oh very much so. And we, you know, our firm has, we’ve really developed a specialty around coming into rehabilitating CRMs that have failed or just not, you know, they’re what you described earlier about when you came into pain. With your groups CRM, where it’s just, it’s a repository of information that’s really not being utilized. And if you can transform an organization when you do it the right way, the way you describe it is spot on. It’s awesome.
Phillip Girard 30:15
Yeah, yeah.
Christopher Smith 30:17
So thinking about, I’m asking this, I ask everyone this question, I’m gonna ask you a little differently. When you were a salesperson, when it came to CRM, did you love it, or did you hate it?
Phillip Girard 30:30
Well, when I grew up in sales, the CRM wasn’t a thing. Goldmine was out. And so then that was, you know, or Act, which was more of a, you know, kind of a contact database. I remember early on thinking to myself that if I don’t attack this in an organized way, I’m never going to be successful. So we didn’t have the CRM tools, you know, in my early career. So, you know, I remember and frankly, you know, spreadsheets were, you know, there was a thing but not like a, you know, thing. I remember notebooks in, you know, other paper means and, you know, things that I used to the best of my ability to try to follow that process. But to me, it was always around trying to understand what’s the repeatability. I would have to say that in my early career, I wish I had CRM. I, you know, like, what a great tool, because I remember like the, you know, the Monday morning meetings, when you get called out the, alright, what are you working on that kind of thing, it’d be nice to be able to just, you know, print a report and show that and instead of, you know, making papers and trying to, you know, yeah, this is what I’m working on. So I would have loved it, if I had it, and in the places that I have had it in, in my leadership roles. I love it.
Christopher Smith 31:45
That’s awesome. That’s awesome.
Phillip Girard 31:47
But with the caveat that I only love it when it’s implemented correctly, and it reflects your sales process versus it’s a repository.
Christopher Smith 31:55
Amen. Amen. Mistake one, amen. Amen in there. Well we are at the end of our time here on Sales Lead Dog, I really appreciate you coming on, I really enjoyed listening to you. If people want to get in touch with you, what’s the best way for them to get in touch with you?
Phillip Girard 32:15
LinkedIn is a great way, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. Just please do me one favor though and put a note in there. Why? Because I, you get requests that don’t say anything. And I look at the profile and don’t understand the connection point. And I frankly, I don’t I don’t connect there because I’m not looking to just grow my connection points. I want to actually have meaningful connections with people so I always ask that you know, if there’s no note in there, I don’t understand what you’re trying to connect around. Unless I know you of course, then then I’m connecting because I know you but but yeah, that’s that’s probably the best way is my profile. So you know, you search for I’m in South Carolina, I’m with Panduit, Philip Gerard is you know, I’m pretty findable on LinkedIn.
Christopher Smith 32:56
That’s terrific. Well, again, thank you for being on Sales Lead Dog.
Phillip Girard 33:00
My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Chris.
Intro/Outro 33:04
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