0:01
Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith.
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Talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack.
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Listen to find out how the best of the best achieved success with their team and CRM technology.
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And remember, unless you were the lead dog, the view never changes.
0:26
Welcome to Sales Lead dog.
0:28
My guest on the show today is Andy Drummond.
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Andy is the founder of Shire Growth Partners.
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Andy, welcome to Sales Lead Dog.
0:37
Chris, thank you.
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I appreciate the opportunity.
0:39
And you invited me to join you for a little while today.
0:43
Yeah, I’m really excited to have you on here because of I think of the unique perspective you have that you’ve developed a recurring just with what you’re doing with Shire Growth Partners.
0:54
Tell me a little bit about about Shire Growth Partners.
0:57
What do you guys do?
0:58
So, so I’m a I’m AI think they call it these days a solopreneur, which sounds much better than it’s me and a shingle.
1:10
I founded Shire Growth Partners a little over a year ago, Chris and, and they, the thought behind it was, was really the culmination of the things I’ve done over a 30 plus year career, right.
1:25
And the thing I realized is lots of companies are trying to grow.
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Lots of companies have great strategies.
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Lots of companies trip up and fall when it comes to execution for a whole variety of reasons.
1:42
Shy Growth’s partners role, My role is to help companies solve that problem, particularly industrial, particularly P backed.
1:52
So the real focus for, for, for the firm, for me, lower mid market and lower mid market industrial companies, primarily those backed by PE firms.
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But you know, everyone’s looking, everyone’s trying to figure out how to either grow more or grow faster or grow in a different spot.
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And that’s what I’m here to help with.
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And that’s why, why did you on the show?
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Because this is a topic that I think resonates with just about anyone who’s in a sales leadership role.
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That’s our job is to grow whatever business we’re in.
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And I particularly love that you’re, you’re working with PE companies that those are some of our favorite companies cut, you know, to have it as customers.
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You know, we partner with private equity and because we’re the same way, we want to help you grow leveraging technology.
2:48
And so I think we’re going to have a lot to talk about today.
2:52
When you look back over your career, Andy and, and I used to boil it down to three things that have really driven and LED to your success.
3:01
What are those three things?
3:05
So I will start with great leaders.
3:11
So I think the people who I have worked for and and worked with, but but a lot worked for who have kind of just really helped me mould my career, my skill set challenged me, guided me, developed me.
3:32
So that’s, that’s definitely one.
3:35
I think looking back, Chris, I’ve had the opportunity to work at a number of different companies in different industries, all in the B2B industrial space.
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But the, the thing that never fails to kind of surprised me in some ways is every time you move to somewhere new and something new, it’s a learning opportunity.
4:01
It feels like the sales motion’s the same.
4:04
It feels like the market dynamics are the same, but there’s always something different.
4:09
There’s and, and that learning and that kind of curiosity to learn I think has been great.
4:16
I think the third thing is just done work, right place, right time, met the right people, being in the right situation and probably being open, you know, to to listen to opportunities and, and, and take a couple of risks along the way, not all of which have worked, sadly, but that’s OK.
4:39
You know, it’s that’s that, that’s also, I mean, that’s life, that’s business and certainly that’s sales.
4:47
So those are the, those are the, those are probably the three that that I would, yeah, I think fairly consistently come back to when you were starting your career, did you want to be in sales or did you have a different vision for your life?
5:03
Oh, God.
5:04
Well, my mother had a different vision for me.
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She she would have loved me to be a doctor.
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That was never going to happen.
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So I joke about this, but it’s not completely inaccurate.
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Sales is like the family business.
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My grandfather ran a shoe store.
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It’s old shoes.
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My dad was in sales for his whole career.
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So for my whole childhood and life, you know, I had this guy in my life who was in sales and, and I can remember when I was in elementary school and, and we had the, you know, the school vacation and there was nobody to look after me.
5:53
I’d, I’d go and do ride alongs with him and I’d sit in the car with a bag of chips and a bottle of lemonade while he was going and trying to sell things.
6:03
So, and then he’d talk about it.
6:05
So, you know, I just some people, the parents are lawyers and some people the parents are surgeons.
6:15
My my dad was a sales guy.
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So I think there was, I think it was just there was, there was always that thing.
6:22
And I always like talking to people.
6:26
I always like me.
6:27
But so you kind of get you kind of go down that path.
6:30
So I think it was a little predetermined.
6:32
Chris.
6:33
Yeah.
6:34
So thinking about your first sales job, what were some of the key learnings that you had in that role that you still utilize today?
6:45
The, the, the, I, I think the biggest thing and I think I know it now more than I knew it then and I can probably describe it better now.
6:52
Well, you can be the judge of that and your listeners can be the judge of that.
6:59
You know, the number one, this isn’t rocket science.
7:03
So I, I think if you show up for your customers, and that might be physically, if you’re in a field sales role or, or on the phone, if you’re inside sales doesn’t matter.
7:14
Just show up for your customers.
7:18
And I think with the mindset that my job is to help my customer, and that’s first, second or third, It’s not to sell my fill in the blank, it’s to help my customer solve a problem, make the most of an opportunity.
7:39
I, you know what, whatever’s relevant.
7:41
But that’s, and I think I, I feel like I picked that up fairly quickly.
7:48
And I’ve really carried that with me because I, I generally, I think if you put the customer first doesn’t mean you always agree, doesn’t mean you give them everything that they want.
8:00
But if you put the customer’s needs first, it usually ends reasonably well.
8:05
Yeah.
8:06
You know, I was talking to my dad.
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He worked in banking his entire career, but it had him take a sales training class very early in his career.
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So we’re talking 60 years ago.
8:16
Yeah.
8:18
It’s basically what you just said.
8:19
Yeah, you know, and so that’s where you know, when you say like selling does not work.
8:24
I know everyone tries to come up with, hey, this is our new sales methodology.
8:28
You boil it all down Playbook.
8:30
Yeah, Playbook.
8:31
You boil it all down to is that since it’s taken care of, your customers showing up, solve problems, you’re going to be fine.
8:39
Yeah.
8:40
I mean, I just read, I just, I just read a book that 1st it’s very simple principle around how to, how to grow and, and, and the, the, one of the key principles is, you know, take the, take the swings, right?
8:59
Take the swings.
9:00
And the more swings you take, the more success you’re going to have and the more you’re going to grow.
9:06
And, and it’s, I mean, that is a gross simplification and it’s both of the principle and of the book, by the way.
9:13
But, but it’s not wrong, right?
9:16
Yeah.
9:17
And that’s what I try to kind of reinforce and, and share with people what as I’ve, you know, been leading teams and, and now and more kind of advising and consulting and some, some interim stuff that I do.
9:33
But it, it, it’s like if you didn’t, if you don’t put yourself in the game and in the arena, you’re never going to win.
9:38
So do that more.
9:40
Hey, we’re taking a quick break to thank you for listening to and supporting the Sales Lead Dog podcast.
9:47
I want to take a moment and tell you about my book.
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9:51
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10:00
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10:11
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10:18
That’s right, we’re giving it away.
10:20
And while you’re there, take two minutes to check out the CRM Impact Score.
10:26
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10:35
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10:40
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We’ve also got blogs, videos, and a bunch of other resources to help you finally get the results you were promised when you bought your CRM.
10:54
And if you’re watching on YouTube, hit that like button and make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any future episodes of Sales Lead Dog.
11:03
OK, let’s get back to this episode of the Sales Lead Dog podcast.
11:08
Why do you like working with PE companies, companies that are, are owned by private equity or, you know, financed by private equity?
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What’s about them that attracts you?
11:19
Well, they, I mean it the, the, the, the, the necessity to grow.
11:24
I mean the, the, the whole, you know, the whole basis of particularly these days, the basis of, of their investment thesis is, is to grow.
11:35
So, you know, it’s a, it’s a target rich environment from my perspective.
11:44
But but what’s great is they’ll challenge the status quo all day long.
11:50
So the idea of trying new things is, is not scary, at least not to the firm.
11:58
It can be to the port Co management until they start to get used to what that environment feels like.
12:07
The fact that general, well, not generally, in fact, always, at least in my experience that, you know, data is king.
12:15
So PE firms, for better or for worse, love data, which I’m all on board with so long as you don’t forget that there’s actually a real world out there with people and customers and and competitors and all and all this stuff.
12:33
So, so the fact that analysis and data is something that matters and they understand means, you know, there’s a conversation that I can have that that resonates because I completely, I completely agree with that.
12:47
And you know, certainly not the least important thing.
12:52
They have money, so they’ll invest, you know, so I so, so I, I think, I think those are the, those are the key things for me, Chris.
13:05
Yeah, yeah.
13:06
We work with private equity backed firms as well.
13:08
And for me, people ask me like, why, why are you focusing on that segment of the market?
13:14
And it’s a lot of a parallel, a lot of what you said I’ve just learned over the years that, you know, we sell CRM sales force at Microsoft Dynamics.
13:22
They’re expensive investments or can be very expensive for for businesses, depending on the size, to be able to make or be willing to make that investment or really drive any type of significant change in a business.
13:36
There has to be some kind of pressure force you to do that.
13:39
Otherwise people just sit in status quo because that’s easy.
13:43
Like, why would you do anything differently?
13:45
Yeah, like Wyatt, like, hey, no, we’re chunking along.
13:47
We’re doing fine.
13:48
We don’t need to change anything.
13:50
And without that external pressure to change, nothing really is going to happen.
13:56
People will always revert back to their comfort zone.
13:59
Is that your experience as well?
14:02
Yeah.
14:02
It’s easy.
14:03
The easiest thing is do nothing because I mean, we’re, we’re, we’re, you know, we’re humans and, and we like what we know.
14:13
And we, it’s it’s easy, right?
14:17
You just keep, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.
14:20
And that’s, you know, that the, the PE environment is not that.
14:29
And, you know, I think they will push and help and guide and insist and check and do all those things that that mean change actually does happen because you have to make it happen.
14:45
So yeah, I mean, and, and look, not, not, not every PE firm is created equal there.
14:55
We won’t name names, but there are some that, you know, I think have have a much more prescriptive and directive approach than others.
15:05
My preference is where it’s more of a partnership with the with the Portco and, and I’ve been pretty lucky the firms I’ve worked with generally have, have been in that bucket rather than the other bucket.
15:20
So yeah, that’s, that’s kind of, that’s kind of how I’d see it.
15:23
Yeah.
15:24
I wish more business leaders would take would learn from what they, these companies are doing to drive growth.
15:33
You know that it’s easy.
15:35
You know it is hard work sometimes to truly Dr.
15:37
transformation and and to to do what you have to do to drive dramatic growth.
15:44
But you know that there’s so many benefits that come out of that.
15:49
You know there’ll be so many benefits for our economy if people more leaders were like that.
15:54
Why do you think people stay with status quo beyond?
15:58
It’s just because say it’s, well, it’s easy to do that, but there’s also, I think there’s a big fear element with that as well.
16:04
When you come into a new company and they know, hey, a whole bunch is going to change, There’s usually a lot of fear around that or potential a lot of fear.
16:12
How do you handle that in your role?
16:15
The, the, the, the things I’ve done and I, and I think, and I think generally works, it is honesty is the best policy.
16:24
So, so explaining the what and the why, So what are we trying to do?
16:32
Why are we trying to do it?
16:36
The, and what that’s going to look like, the how and being transparent about that with with people, I think they appreciate it.
16:46
I think it helps A-Team or individuals get on board with, with what’s happening and what’s coming.
16:55
And you give people the opportunity to to be like, you know what, I get it, but this isn’t for me.
17:02
And that happens.
17:04
And and that’s OK, That’s OK.
17:08
So I, I, I think in general, that transparency is really a huge difference, Michael.
17:17
Yeah, I think that’s really important just in terms of just being a leader is really breaking it down to this is what we’re trying to do and this is the why, you know, people need to understand you need to get by in in alignment.
17:32
And so I think having that level of transparency is very important, especially when you’re stepping into a new role to build trust.
17:43
What other things do you do to build trust with a new team?
17:48
So I mean, I’m pretty, I’m I’m, I’m a pretty open book and I try to be an open book and it’s kind of that transparency thing that I that I just said so, So I think that’s, that’s that’s the thing that I’ll always keep coming back to.
18:05
The the other thing that I think is just I think is incredibly important is, is engaging and involving people in the work.
18:13
So, so rather than pushing everything like, you know, I’m the boss, so I know everything.
18:20
So I have the answers.
18:21
So here’s what the plan is actually having your team part of the solution development just goes a, goes a a huge, huge way, you know, and, and there’s lots of and, and I think, you know, we talked about, you know, my different experiences and things I’ve learned at different, at different companies and in different industries.
18:53
You know, I learnt so much about kind of problem solving and that kind of continuous improvement, lean thinking in a commercial environment when I was at Granger, the, because for them it was like breathing in the supply chain world and it was completely new to me.
19:13
You know, this whole idea of, you know, root cause analysis and, and, and really kind of digging into what’s the problem and how do you measure the problem?
19:24
How do you define the improvement that you’re looking to make?
19:26
And how do you test council measures?
19:29
I’ve never done that.
19:30
So, you know, I, I think, I think as you do those things and you engage, you engage people is, is huge at the, the client I’m working with at the moment.
19:44
One of the processes that we’re working on improving is, is, is the whole like contract management, contract operations.
19:51
We have a lot of contractual relationships with customers and we’re trying to figure out how to turn that into more of a growth engine for the business.
19:59
So just just last week we did a Kaizen with with the whole of the contract team.
20:07
And they came in, they mapped the process, they went, I mean, they just went through that whole process as a team.
20:13
And this was, you know, a, a, a group of individual contributors who are not used to this.
20:21
And, and what comes out is remarkable because they know things that the manager of the team doesn’t know.
20:28
Certainly I have no idea about.
20:30
So fascinating.
20:32
We do something very similar with that, that, you know, our goal is to eliminate anything that we call an execution barrier or something that’s going to stop us from being efficient and getting our job done.
20:45
And so we do the same thing.
20:47
We pulled everybody together.
20:48
Let’s start at the beginning of the process.
20:50
Let’s go all the way through with everyone that’s involved.
20:55
And it’s always makes me chuckle when leaders going, well, this is what we do at this step.
21:00
But then the people who actually do it are like, actually, no, it’s not actually, no, it isn’t actually, that’s not what we do.
21:07
We’re doing this now.
21:08
The leader has no idea, you know, and and so that’s why you can’t insulate yourself in your ivory tower.
21:15
You have to get involved in the details.
21:18
Absolutely.
21:18
Can I give you another example that somebody told me that isn’t my examples?
21:22
I’m going to tell somebody else’s story.
21:25
So, so as you know, every private equity firm, they make an investment, they buy a company, they create the 100 day plan.
21:34
The 100 day plan has these value creation plans, which you know, is often a euphemism for where we’re going to go find money, which is, by the way, fine and reasonable.
21:47
One of the firms, I, I, I know the, the approach they take to identify value creation opportunities is they bring in like 30 to 40 people from across the company into a process, into a session that that you know, has a, has, has a process and a steps behind it.
22:14
But they’ve got people from the production line that I mean, it’s like, this is awesome.
22:20
I mean, who does that now?
22:23
That’s part of our methodology that like we need the front line people involved because they’re the ones doing the work.
22:31
I know one of the other things that we do is like, tell me about all the spreadsheets you’re using to run your business and people are like, Oh my God, they’re everywhere.
22:42
Yep.
22:42
You know, like, and I explain every one of those worksheets, those spreadsheets.
22:47
It’s a workaround because your technology is not supporting them the way it should be.
22:53
But I still have to get my work done.
22:55
So I’m going to make something myself that I can use to get my work done.
23:00
So much hidden costs, so much hidden inefficiencies because people are still getting their work done.
23:05
A lot of time, leadership has no idea.
23:07
The technology group has no idea about these spreadsheets.
23:11
You know, people are going.
23:12
So we we’re going to go, we’ll go, we’ll go off track.
23:16
But the interest, I think the interesting thing about that observation, Chris, is you and I could have had that same conversation 20 years ago, and we’re still having it today.
23:24
Oh, yeah, 100% with the jillions of dollars that have been invested in technology solutions.
23:30
I still do.
23:31
I still pull data from a system, put it into a spreadsheet and.
23:35
Yeah.
23:37
And to the way I need it so I can find out what I need to find out.
23:40
Yeah.
23:41
And yeah, it mystifies me that at this age, we’re still so many companies are still stuck doing that.
23:50
And yeah, so, you know, normally we don’t talk about CRM till the end of our conversation because of where we’re going and your experience.
24:00
Why do you think technology, specifically CRM technology is so difficult for so many companies?
24:11
I think there’s lots.
24:12
I think there’s, I think there’s many reasons.
24:14
I think that they, I mean, the thing I the thing I’ve seen a couple of times is where you start, you put the cart before the horse.
24:24
So you start with the tool and not the process, which I think is, you know, a well known thing, but continues to be a thing.
24:35
Or you think you’ve defined your sales process and you’ve got 5 stages and one’s called prospect and one calls negotiate and you go, yeah, this is awesome, we’re good.
24:48
But then the nuance gets missed.
24:52
So you know, things like what are the exit criteria to move from 1:00 to 2:00?
25:00
And how clear and simple is that for people to understand?
25:02
So, so I, so I think that whole piece around the process, pressure test the process, ask the people who really do the work and understand, you know, even better if you can get some customer input because hopefully your sales process matches or aligns with the buying process.
25:23
So doing that so those things.
25:25
So that’s, that’s one piece.
25:29
I think the, the fact that there’s always a, I think everybody’s dream is that the CRM is the one place that I’m going to have to go and live, right.
25:42
And honestly, I’m an old guy, Chris, and I’ve never seen that dream come to life anywhere.
25:47
No, I’ve been doing it for 20 years.
25:50
And I think for 20 years the large CRM vendors have been, I don’t see lying, but I think they are very generous.
26:02
Yeah, and, and, and quite aspirational about, about it.
26:07
But it, but the, the problem is what happens, I think is that dream is created and then there’s an inbuilt disappointment when, wait a minute, I still have to go and pull reports or, or, or look at reports in Power BI or, or even worse, I have to go and drill through the ERP system to get margin or, or you know what, whatever it is.
26:33
So I think there’s like an inherent kind of built in disappointment.
26:39
And then there’s just the human factor, right?
26:41
I mean, it’s, and you know this better than I do.
26:44
The, the, the biggest hurdle to a successful ERCRCRM implementation and most importantly, value creation is the humans.
26:56
It’s not the tool.
26:58
I mean, honestly, the tool is the tool.
27:01
Yeah, I talk about that all the time.
27:03
They’re all directionally the same.
27:05
Yes, exactly.
27:07
It it there used to be much bigger differences five years ago.
27:11
It’s not the case anymore.
27:15
It and I just helped her look there.
27:17
There are tools that make sense, but they so many companies get all wrapped around, oh, we’re a such and such company.
27:26
Yeah.
27:26
Why?
27:29
Well, that’s what I’ve always used.
27:31
OK, that’s not really a why, you know, that’s not benefiting the business.
27:36
It’s just you’re telling me, hey, I’m in my comfort zone and I want to stay in my comfort zone.
27:41
And I see it all the time.
27:44
Or, you know, somebody gets new leadership in and now they’re going to migrate to the other platform because hey, that’s what they’ve used their whole career and I need to have my blankie, you know, to comfort me and make me feel safe.
27:56
But it’s you’re going to spend a whole bunch of money and waste a whole bunch of people’s time on, you’re not moving the company forward at all.
28:02
Now, currently, a lot of times you’d legitimately have to do that because the current CRM is just so bad.
28:08
The implementation is so bad, it makes sense to start over.
28:11
But that’s not always the case.
28:13
And anyway, to me, it’s that fundamental.
28:17
You need to have a strong data layer in the business.
28:21
It’s the foundation of everything.
28:24
And one of the things we like to ask companies when we’re coming to start work, we want to know what are your strategic goals?
28:30
What are the things you’re doing to move the needle for the business?
28:34
Nobody’s ever told me, hey, we want to have an incredible data platform to grow our business on.
28:39
There’s never, I’ve never seen anything related to data in the organization’s strategic goals.
28:44
And I don’t understand that because other than people, it’s your most valuable asset.
28:48
I agree.
28:51
Agreed.
28:52
Yeah.
28:53
Why do you think that is?
28:54
Do you have any ideas?
28:55
Like why?
28:56
Because, well, what data you you’ve made a bunch of all types like, hey, I need this to make decisions of blah, blah, blah.
29:01
But it always seems to be back to the bench.
29:04
It’s not at the forefront.
29:06
Well, I think, I think one thing is it’s hard.
29:11
And so, you know, whilst clearly you and I are uniquely smart, I think there’s a lot of other small people in nowhere.
29:21
We’re very smart.
29:21
We’re uniquely very smart, Correct.
29:24
We’re just different levels small.
29:26
That’s right.
29:27
Like we’re not the only people that have gone.
29:29
Wait a minute.
29:29
Yeah, if only so.
29:32
So I think it’s a known thing, but it’s really, really difficult.
29:39
It is very difficult, complicated.
29:40
And it’s, you know, there’s touches every part of the company.
29:44
So alignment I think is a is a challenge.
29:49
And, and, and so I think, I think ultimately people kind of look at it and go, you know, we’ll, we’ll leave that from the next go around.
30:00
Wait, yeah, I remember I it’s still a funny story for me.
30:04
I did a presentation at a conference on, you know, going beyond the the basics for your your sales dashboards.
30:12
Yeah, you know, anything around revenue for the sales team.
30:15
And I just talked about that, you know that usually for every business is my experience depend on what level of the organization.
30:22
And you’re going to have three to five KPIs that if I’m monitoring those, I know the health of the business and what, you know, do I need to engage, pull levers, whatever.
30:34
So focus on identifying what are those three to five KPIs at each of the levels of the business.
30:41
And someone came up to me afterwards and said, yeah, you, you know, you mentioned that every business has these three to five KP is, but you didn’t mention what they were, what are those three to five?
30:50
And I’m like, well, it’s unique to your business.
30:53
If they’re your three to five KP is, you know, and, and so that’s where you need to know your business well enough to be able to say.
31:03
And so when I, when we do those workshops with teams and stuff and, and we’ll ask, it’s rare for someone to immediately say, Oh yeah, here’s our numbers.
31:13
These, this is what we need to see.
31:14
We usually have to do a lot of work with them to elicit that information.
31:20
And, and, and really, you know, we’re talking some high level consulting.
31:24
It’s hard to help them figure that stuff out.
31:27
How should I be evaluating the business based upon my role?
31:32
You know, and, and because it’s again at by level, that’s not going to be the same set of numbers that I made.
31:40
Everybody’s looking from a slightly different direction and a slightly different level.
31:45
But it’s so important.
31:47
And I mean, there’s this whole, you know, KPIs, leading indicators looking forward instead of looking backwards.
31:56
I mean, this, this is the, this is the core of why CRM matters.
32:01
I, I think anyway, and, and, and I think if, if you can just, if you can be successful and solve the simple part and then take the baby steps, you know, like, I mean, I get so excited if there’s a, if there’s, you know, opportunity management, people are doing pipeline reviews like real, but having a real pipeline conversation, you know, sellers are putting notes in.
32:32
And so that, so I mean, again, none of this is none of this is rocket science, but it’s so valuable.
32:40
Yeah, we had a client that they’re in the textiles business.
32:44
You know, it’s a very much a commodity based business.
32:47
And one of their it was great.
32:48
It was fun for me to learn about their business and think, you know, what are their leading, but one of their leading indicators was samples request what?
32:56
Look at all the, you know, thousands, they have 10s of, you know, probably over 10,000 products in their inventory.
33:02
But looking at that data of what are people asking for, that was one of their very early leading indicators around the business, like where’s the business going?
33:12
What, what’s getting traction, what’s not?
33:15
I mean, looking at those trends, they were able to manage so much based off of that.
33:19
And then building out from there.
33:23
There’s so there’s so many of those things And and it’s, I think the, I think the really clever part of currency is boiling it down to the three to five that you that you described when you’re on stage, right.
33:37
Because it’s very easy to end up with 53.
33:41
Oh yeah.
33:41
And then you may as well have nothing.
33:43
Exactly.
33:43
That’s why I tell people it’s like, look, it, it’s too much.
33:46
Nobody like how how is that when you have so much, you just going to be so overwhelmed so fast, you’re not going to know where to look.
33:55
And that’s when you’re making things way harder than they need to be.
33:58
Yeah, Now you can drive into those details.
34:01
So I’m starting with my 3:00 to 5:00 and hey, I’ve got a question about this one.
34:05
I might need three more numbers to back up the research on that.
34:08
That’s fine.
34:10
But it’s, it’s all about how you build us and building a data framework that’s going to support your business and it it’s, it’s critical.
34:22
So how do you go about that when you’re coming into a role and you have a client, you know, new, a new company you’re working with that really doesn’t have that data framework yet, they haven’t quite figured that out.
34:31
What’s your approach to tackle that problem?
34:34
So the way I, the way I’ve kind of gone, gone about this and, and often times, and again, I come back to what you said there, it’s definitely situational in terms of what are the right KPIs, But there are themes.
34:47
And particularly when like me, you’re playing in very similar like go to market models, sales, motions and businesses.
34:55
There are some like thematic things that will show up 80% of the time.
34:59
So I will often start with like here’s, here’s a, here’s a dashboard that probably is directionally going to be helpful.
35:13
And I mean, and, and most companies are doing some of those, fewer doing all of it, fewer doing it on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, which is, which is the other thing that I, that I love.
35:27
So I’ll start, so I’ll start there.
35:29
And then it’s like, OK, what can we get?
35:31
What can we get without having to move maintenance?
35:36
Because there’s a, the law of diminishing returns kicks in where like it, it’s the effort, the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze, right?
35:44
It’s not helpful enough for the effort it’s going to take to get the data.
35:50
And, and, and so most times I don’t think I’ve been anywhere where it’s been like, yeah, we can’t get a hold of any of that.
36:00
Sometimes you got to build things and, and frankly, sometimes you got to download data, put it into Excel and, and, and do the work there.
36:08
Yeah, just do, you know, particularly when you get to the, you know, one of my favourites quote conversion and often times being able to tie a quote to a subsequent PO is a thing, is a challenge.
36:27
So you have to get pretty creative sometimes because, you know, customers do annoying things like place an order, but don’t tell you the quote number.
36:36
I mean, these customers, they’re so annoying.
36:39
So, you know, so like, how do you solve for things like that?
36:42
But there’s there’s, there’s ways around it.
36:44
And, and the other thing I would say is, you know, whenever I see a dashboard that has numbers to like two or three or 4 decimal places, unlike, yeah, I don’t believe any of it now, right?
36:56
Because no, what?
36:58
It’s not possible.
37:00
Let’s give me a whole number.
37:01
A whole number in a red or green is good enough for this guy.
37:04
You know, that’s all I, that’s all you need.
37:07
Yeah.
37:07
I think the key is get started, you know, figure out what you can get quickly.
37:12
That’s the other thing we just preached to people’s like, look, that’s a great point you’re looking for what’s the minimal viable data set I can produce within 30 days, let’s say, and let’s start there.
37:25
And you’ll learn so much by figuring that out.
37:29
Then you can look at, OK, well, you know, we want these other parts, we can’t get them.
37:34
So let’s start putting a plan together that maybe over the next, you know, three months to six months, what do we need to put in place to start getting those numbers?
37:42
Now we can get into the next level.
37:44
But the key is you have to start, you know, what, what, what can we get within 30 days?
37:49
Let’s get that up and running.
37:50
So now we’ve got something, a tool that we can begin using right away.
37:55
And then and then iterate from there, get into that, that motion where let’s learn from what we’ve got.
38:02
And then how do we improve?
38:04
Yeah, yeah.
38:06
I don’t think that’s the same with with with almost.
38:10
Then it’s the same with CRM.
38:11
It’s nice.
38:12
So let’s start with something and then let’s build.
38:15
It’s it’s, I know it’s crazy how many times we come in to do a rescue where, you know, companies have spent years and a lot of money trying to get Sierra built and they really have nothing to show for it.
38:27
And then we’re just like, all right, we’re putting a stake in the ground 90 days out from now and we’re going live with the whatever we can get done in those 90 days and then start that on a cycle like that.
38:38
It changes everything.
38:39
Yeah, it does.
38:40
You know, instead of trying to, hey, we’re going to take three years and try to build this perfect system.
38:44
Well, your whole business is going to change in those three years.
38:47
It’s a moving target.
38:48
You’re you are, you’re just you’re you’re dead before you started.
38:53
Yeah.
38:53
Agreed.
38:54
Agreed, Andy.
38:57
We’re at our time now on sales lead.
38:59
I guess it just goes by so fast for me.
39:01
I know it’s, it’s been a great conversation.
39:05
If people want to reach out and connect with you, if they want to learn more about Shire Growth Partners, what’s the best way for them to do that?
39:11
I mean, there’s a, there’s a couple of ways, the website shiregrowthpartners.com or just e-mail me [email protected].
39:19
So awesome.
39:20
Did he catch that?
39:22
No worries because we will have it in our show notes.
39:24
You can get that at impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog where you’ll get not only this episode of Sales Lead Dog, but our 160 plus episodes.
39:34
Now they’re we’re cranking them out.
39:37
So be sure to check that out, subscribe, reach out, connect with Andy, It’d be great.
39:42
Andy, thank you so much for coming on Sales Lead Dog and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog pack.
39:48
Thank you.
39:48
Thanks, Chris.
39:51
As we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog, be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media, follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, watch the videos on YouTube and you can also find our episodes on our website at impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog.
40:12
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