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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.
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Welcome to sales Lead Dog.
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My guest for today’s episode is Art Fromm.
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Art is an author, speaker and facilitator.
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Sales transformation, making seamless sales.
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He’s also the founder of team sales Development.
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Art.
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Welcome to Sales Lead Dog.
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Hey, it’s good to be with you, Kristen, with everybody that’s listening.
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Thank you so much for the opportunity to share today.
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Yeah.
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So I met Art at a conference and right away, like I need to get to know this guy and I need to have him on the podcast.
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So I’m super excited for you to be here today, Art and talk about your book Making Seamless Sales.
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Highly recommend this that the listeners, you all check this book out.
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I think it’ll be very, very helpful to those of you.
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You know our audience, we’re all in sales, right?
1:17
Art?
1:18
Tell me a bit about team sales development.
1:23
Yeah, so team sales development has been around for 15, going on 16 years.
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It certainly didn’t start this way.
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My career started as I was a mechanical engineer.
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I get involved with software applications very early on and that wound up having me, I was recruited by a software company that we were using.
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So I that’s where my sales career started.
1:46
So I was a customer first in a couple different companies.
1:50
Then I was in sales and sales management roles doing business to business, you know, consultative sales and all that.
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And then I got moved from my role.
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At the time, one of my roles was a manager of a bunch of S ES for the mid central US and I was teaching them things that my company was not teaching them.
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So it was a lot of feature function stuff that they got, but they didn’t get consultative selling.
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So I started to do some of that and the company liked it so much they took me from that role and put me into sales enablement and that’s about 25 years ago.
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So I’ve been in really sales enablement roles inside of company initially and then I went in my own, I was joined, I joined a global learning company for a while and then team sales development was born somewhere around 2009.
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And that’s where where we’re at today.
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That’s what I’m doing today.
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So that’s terrific.
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So what, what are the things that you’re seeing when people are calling up and say, art, I need help with what?
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What are the common things people are coming to you for?
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Yeah, it could be a variety of things.
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Mainly it’s going to be about sales transformation.
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So it’s not the tips and tricks and that type of stuff.
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It’s deeper.
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It’s more about doing proper discovery, doing proper qualification, doing proper presentations, connecting the technology to the business outcomes, making sure that we’re focused from hello on the end in mind, which is client success and also the way that sales teams can work together better.
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So that’s a huge theme.
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Obviously with my company name and the name of the book, it’s all about the SE and the AM working together seamlessly so that they can increase annual recurring revenue, etcetera, by having a happy client.
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So it’s a variety of those things and I have a portfolio of offerings that we’ll talk about some of that I’m sure today that can address that on a as needed basis.
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And I do keynotes and other types of things as well.
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Yeah, it’s, it’s, I think just based on what Art just shared with us, you can understand why I was so excited to have him on the podcast because it, when we started talking, it didn’t take me long to realize his approach is very lined with what I do with my firm, Impeller CRM.
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It’s all about the outcome and having a happy customer.
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You know, if they’re spending a whole bunch of money with you, you better make sure they’re happy if you know when they flip the switch on whatever it is you’re giving them.
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Otherwise you’re not going to be in business very long.
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Yeah, I mean, back in the old days, which I think some of us have been around long enough, you used to sell in in in essence.
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In fact, I have one here, you know, like you put some software on ACD and you sell that to the client and once they get it, they might pay some recurring maintenance, but it’s like, OK, I’m going to go to the next sale.
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You can’t do that anymore.
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It’s, you know, SAS and B to B require the deep understanding and the long term relationship, which is just should be natural because I don’t want to sell.
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I want to help somebody buy.
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I don’t want to push my stuff.
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I want to help them understand what it is and even get them curious to where they’re starting to pull.
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And that’s a really good sign, by the way, when somebody’s pulling and they’re interested.
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Yeah, that’s one thing I really liked about the book is that it really is focused on the customer, not on selling.
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And I think that is sorely needed in our industry even today.
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You know, I’ve a lot of people talk about this, but are they really doing it in practice?
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Is that something you see a lot in your world?
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Oh, absolutely.
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I mean, one of the interesting things that I do in my workshop around the sales methodology, which is called sales opportunity snapshot.
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And that’s part of what’s highlighted in the book more from a concept perspective, not the actual methodology.
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Like you can gain get benefit out of it, but but curiously, in the workshop for it, I always start with two processes.
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I have a sales process that I lay out in a buying process and the punchline is going to be we got aligned to the buying process, right.
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So I ask everybody on and this is salespeople and you know, a lot of very tenured people that have been around a long time.
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Often I’ll ask them which stage do you get involved with?
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And I tell them, write down the stage name or say the stage name.
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And invariably everybody writes down sales stages, all the sales stage names.
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Very rarely does anybody write down or say the buying stages.
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When in reality the buying stage is much more important than the sales stage.
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Because if we are too far along in our sales process, we’re going to lose our buyer.
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And it’s all about really moving left in the process to understand what is that buyer really trying to do.
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So you’re right, the even the title of the book is making seamless sales.
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But the key is in the word seamless because seamless for us and seamless for the buyer so that they see we’re focused on them and they’re not interacting with 20 different people along the sales process.
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It’s one buying process that we’re supporting.
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No, I love that.
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That’s something I’ve been preaching for years with our customers.
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When, you know, when we’re implementing CRM, obviously they want us to implement stages, you know, so they can see, hey, I manage their pipeline, where are we at in our pipeline, etcetera.
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It’s always from the perspective of the seller.
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I’ve yet 20 years of doing this, seeing an implementation.
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You know, when we talked about what are your stages, it’s exactly what you just said.
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It’s always their selling stages.
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It’s never the buyer’s journey.
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And so I’m like, you know what I have that discussion of, well, what’s the purpose of this stage?
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It’s always from their perspective.
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It’s not from the perspective of the buyer.
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And what, you know, our goal is, is salespeople is we’re trying to help them through their journey and advance through their journey.
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It’s not to sell them.
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It’s we’re there to help them advance through their journey, get to that outcome they’re seeking.
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And that should be represented within the within the selling, the selling process.
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But you know, to me it’s like, yeah, anyway, I think I have, we have very parallel views for sure.
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And it’s one of the ways that the win rate can go up.
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Because when we are focused on the buyer’s journey and we think about what their needs are and how we align our solutions to their needs.
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If there’s a disconnect either with what they’re doing or with what we can provide, then we should exit early so that we’re not trying to push, you know, a rope up a hill or whatever.
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The expression is right is that we’re not trying to push it because, and this is the idea of a funnel, it drives me crazy.
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A sales funnel.
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Well, that do you know why it’s a funnel?
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Because a lot of stuff falls out at the end.
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We don’t want it to fall out at the end.
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We want it to fall out at the beginning.
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So proper qualification allows a short funnel at the top that gives us a pipeline of things that are much more aligned.
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And the only way we know if we’re aligned is with the buyer.
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Yeah, I absolutely hate that whole funnel.
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Yeah, it is my number one thing I hate seeing in dashboards is that whole funnel thing.
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I’m like that it yeah, it’s clearly we need to know how things are progressing.
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But the funnel just has that thought of it’s OK if it drops out at the very end and management hates that and sales people do too.
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You know, we’re, we’re hoping that it’s going to close and we shouldn’t rely on hope.
9:18
No, exactly.
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That’s one thing I talked about too, is that one of my pet peeves might be get a little bit off track here, but one of my pet peeves is, oh, at this stage we’re at 10% probability.
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At the next stage we’re at 20%.
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But you know, it’s going to go up with every stage.
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Like, no, you know, if you’re really qualifying, if you’re really doing your homework up front, you should know your probability at the beginning, not at the end, you know?
9:43
Anyway, hey, we’re taking a quick break to thank you for listening to and supporting the Sales Lead Dog podcast.
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I want to take a moment and tell you about my book.
9:53
CRM Shouldn’t Suck.
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If your CRM feels more like a black hole for data than something that actually helps your team sell, you’re not alone.
10:03
The book breaks down why CRMS fail for so many businesses and what you can do about it.
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No fluff, just real strategies that work.
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So go to crmshouldntsuck.com to order your free copy right now.
10:22
That’s right, we’re giving it away.
10:24
And while you’re there, take two minutes to check out the CRM Impact Score.
10:30
It’s a quick diagnostic that shows you how your CRM is really performing, where it’s helping you, and where it’s hurting you.
10:39
You’ll get a personalized report with clear, actionable next steps.
10:44
You can start right away to maximize your CRM investment.
10:48
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.
10:58
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.
11:07
OK, let’s get back to this episode of the Sales Lead Dog podcast.
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So tell me about at some point you said I need to write a book.
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Tell me that story.
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How’d how’d you come about Coming up, I’m hold the book up again, making seamless sales.
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Tell me the idea of the seat of the idea.
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Like I need to write the book well, because I have been in pre sales and sales roles in my sales part of my career.
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And then I did enablement and facilitation and you know, keynotes or whatever else through the rest of my career, both equally for pre sales and sales.
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One recurring theme that kept coming up over and over again was that I was either brought in just for the sales team or just for the pre pre sales team.
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And really, the organizations are divided that way, the personalities are divided that way.
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The industry in general caters to either one or the other.
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But what’s missing is the connection of the two of them together, which is where there’s an untapped potential.
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And studies have shown it’s between, you know, 18 to 37% are what a lot of the studies are saying of unrealized win rate just because of the inefficiencies of the organization not working well together.
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So based on all that and kind of as a legacy thing, you know, you don’t make money off of books.
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This is not my goal here.
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My goal is to share very unique perspectives because I’ve been both roles, I’ve taught both roles and I’ve helped both roles come together better.
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So my book takes what I know about, you know, pre sales that would be helpful for sales and what I know about sales that will be helpful for pre sales so that they can each come closer to the middle and in the interaction with the client have a healthy overlap from generally speaking, top down and bottom up for the respective roles.
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But the, the big thing is in the middle meeting where the technology meets the, the outcomes that the client is trying to do.
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So I started with that in mind.
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And then as soon as I started talking about that, I couldn’t just leave it at that.
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And I actually extended the the editing of the book by 16 weeks, which cost me extra money, but I extended it by 16 weeks to expand it a little bit in terms of what happens prior to pre sales being involved.
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So from Hello through any type of automated systems, the SDR, the BDR, all that type of thing.
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Then once pre sales and sales does get involved, that’s the part I really explore in great detail.
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And then also what happens after it, because we need to start with the end in mind as we said.
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And part of the end in mind is not throwing it over the wall to the implementation people, but bringing client success all the way back to the beginning.
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And this is what caused me to realize that it’s not a linear process.
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You know, a lot of sales process are shown linear.
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Every buying process I’ve ever seen is shown linear.
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It’s not it’s a circle.
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And that’s why, you know, even the cover of the book is a reminder that it’s a process that continues.
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And if we’re doing it right, it should continue on.
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So this, a lot of this and then the switch to B to B because you can’t get away with just selling something and shelf flares no longer something that anybody it tolerates.
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Those are all the dynamics around this.
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And I wanted to capture it so that I could get this out.
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And I have three main partners that I work with and I’ve worked with for over a dozen years that all three allowed me to use some of the pieces of the the methodologies that I teach.
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And I combined all those together.
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So it’s really a very unique pre sales and sales view, but also a unique combination of these blended methodologies that benefits everyone.
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So and that’s really what it’s all about.
14:54
It’s very, very unique.
14:55
I don’t think you’ll see anything.
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There’s nothing else like it out there.
14:58
Yeah, the, it’s funny, I’m listening to you.
15:03
I’m thinking also, I think there’s a, I’ve seen a lot of times a disconnect between the marketing team and the sales team.
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And so we’re starting to see an evolution in that where they talked like, hey, we need to align sales and marketing.
15:16
That’s evolved into now we need to unify sales and marketing.
15:20
It sounds like that’s the same thing that you’re doing, you’re trying to do with this book.
15:25
And the work that you’re doing is we need to unify pre sales and sales as well.
15:31
Yeah.
15:31
And client success.
15:33
So and client success.
15:34
Oh, I love that.
15:34
Yeah, it’s got to be.
15:36
And I’m not suggesting that everybody has to do everything.
15:40
That wouldn’t work.
15:40
And depending on the size of your sales organization, certain roles may be fulfilled even by an automated demo system, for example, or it might be a person doing it, those types of things.
15:50
But the concept, the overall concept, and by the way, the seamless sales, I think everybody’s picked up by now.
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The SE is the is the sales engineer type role pre sales and the AM is the account manager or sales type role working seamlessly.
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But there’s another higher level that emerged in my research and in writing that extension is that we need an overarching goal of solution enablement.
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I try to keep thinking, what is the goal of the sales team?
16:19
What are we really trying to do?
16:20
Yeah, we’re trying to sell all that stuff, but we are trying to enable a solution for a client that helps them solve their business problems.
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So solution enablement is like a wrapper all the way around it and it has to be done with appropriate account management, which could be fulfilled by a variety of things, including of course, the CRM system.
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So all the data we get from hello all the way through implementation and then expansion, renewal, all those other things.
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It’s a ecosystem and it and it really, once we start looking at it like that, all the pieces start to fall in place much nicer and the client has a much better experience.
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It’s so important that I talk about that a lot when we meet with our clients is that, you know, with CRM from my world, a lot of times it comes like, hey, we need CRM for the sales team or potentially the sales and marketing team.
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But I’m always like, OK, that’s like 20% of the relationship.
17:16
What about the rest?
17:17
The the 80% that follows once you’ve closed that deal, they need CRM too.
17:22
It needs to extend across the organization because you want to have this customer for a long time, right?
17:28
Not just, you know, it’s not like you were saying the old days where here’s your CD, see you later.
17:33
I’m going on to the next one.
17:35
It’s a whole different world these days where it’s all about like I need.
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I spent so much money to get this customer.
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I need to retain them.
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I can’t turn, I can’t, I can’t spend my time refilling the bucket every quarter for the stuff that we lost because we’re not taking care of them post sale, right.
17:54
And with SAS, I mean, it’s all about, I have a lot of clients where their client doesn’t even pay unless they’re using it.
18:01
You know, sometimes it’s based on storage, sometimes it’s based on bandwidth, sometimes it’s based on the number of connectors they’re using or whatever.
18:08
Supply chain, think about supply chain, supply chain doesn’t make any revenue unless their clients are happy with whatever they’ve put into the computer they’re making or the phone they’re making or whatever.
18:19
So it’s all about that.
18:20
And you know, there’s a misnomer too, speaking about qualification, there’s this misnomer.
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The qualification is only for the purpose of the selling team to decide if they want to proceed.
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While that’s part of it, for sure, there’s a lot more to it than that.
18:35
Every piece of information we learn is going to be helpful later on.
18:39
So what was the motive of the client?
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What is the business initiative?
18:43
I would certainly hope whoever is helping them implement your solutions out there, that whoever’s implementing your solutions, helping your clients knows what the goal was.
18:52
But how many times do we get to the end of the sale and now the customer engagement team has to start asking all the questions over again, like, what was this for?
19:01
Maybe they don’t even know and they’re implementing it without understanding the key stakeholders.
19:06
What was the value proposition?
19:08
When did they expect to start to realize value and all that?
19:11
So it is a continuum of knowledge, which is why the CRM system is so critical in terms of capturing it all the way from the beginning and then helping feed that to the end.
19:21
So I have to educate my clients about that.
19:24
They tend to think if it is just the sales, but it’s like, no, that’s a valuable resource.
19:29
It is.
19:30
That can be used all the way through.
19:32
Yeah.
19:33
And you know, one thing that hit me when I was reading your book is that also, and you just said it, that the, the future AI is going to be a huge role.
19:46
I’m not, I don’t even care what business you’re in.
19:48
It’s just a matter of time before AI is going to touch your business.
19:53
And I was just at a conference where they were talking about that, where the model, the revenue models around AI and AI agents, it’s going to be all about consumption.
20:06
So if they’re not using it, you’re not making money, you know, so you need to make sure that when you’re delivering these things that have those AI components and you’re trying to generate revenue from that, you have to make sure you’re enabling them in a way that they’re fully embracing it, fully adopting it and it becomes part of their their whole ecosystem.
20:27
They have, we’re just, you know, part of the day, day-to-day routine.
20:31
We’re going to be using this platform that we got, you know, so that the person selling it, they’re actually realizing the the revenue of the all of that.
20:39
You know, So I think what you’re seeing in your book is it’s going to become even more relevant with the advent of AI.
20:46
Yeah.
20:46
And compensation models need to change accordingly.
20:49
You know, even in the old days, sales was always mad because they didn’t get a cut of the maintenance fees, you know, and then it was they didn’t get a cut of the professional services fees.
21:00
So they just try to cut those things out of there and just get the sale done.
21:04
That can’t happen anymore.
21:06
I think it’s very important for everybody to consider if you have a SAS model or a consumption model or pay as you go model or whatever, the salesperson should be compensated on that total contract value of what you expect that client to be using over the lifetime.
21:21
And it’s a tough thing to do because yes, those are future payments, but that’s what you’re actually selling.
21:27
In fact, in the book I, you know, everybody talks about closing the deal, closing the deal.
21:32
Again, if you’re selling CDs or things, it’s closing the deal.
21:36
You know, you sell the car to the person, now they have the car, right?
21:39
And I’m not saying we shouldn’t help them, but the point is with SAS, it’s not closing the deal.
21:45
I’ve changed that nomenclature to coin a phrase, what I call commitment to consume.
21:50
So what you’re getting at the sales team is working on is getting the client to commit to consume, to commit to use the solution because if they’re not committing to use the solution, it’s no good.
22:02
So closing the deal is a little bit of a weird concept anymore.
22:06
I would say it’s not closed until they’re already using it and you’re generating revenues from it that comes way after the quote sale, right?
22:14
And that, you know, that is God, that’s is so important in my world with CRM that you know, that I was just watching a video, some guy was talking about Salesforce with, you know, they made it super, super easy for people to sign up and like, Hey, I want, I want this, I’m a sign up.
22:31
I go on the website, I can set up my account, I can subscribe and, and most SAS companies work this way.
22:37
I can engage and I can start using it, start paying my monthly fees, But they’re really don’t do a lot to really drive the adoption and the use.
22:48
They do some stuff, but they don’t do a lot to truly guarantee that, yeah, I’m actually going to use it and I’m going to see the benefits of this.
22:55
I’m on my own to figure that out.
22:57
I know.
22:58
And that’s not a good place to be for certain iPhone apps like mine, you know, minesweeper or something, you know, OK, fine, you could pick it up and pretty much figured out.
23:06
Or Candy Crush, which I’ve never tried that or those type of things.
23:09
I’m in the same situation actually because my book does point, like I said to the sales opportunity snapshot methodology and that’s baked into the CRM through apps that I have made.
23:20
And there’s our CRM class apps for both Salesforce and Dynamics.
23:25
And guess what, I do not allow people to use those until they go through the training because there is a trial that they can do and poke around, but it’s not intended for them to go forward because I don’t want them to get a bad experience from it and not realize the potential.
23:41
In fact, what I like to say is the magic is in the methodology.
23:44
And I think this goes to your main point.
23:46
The magic is in the methodology, the method is in the tool.
23:50
So the tool is helping implement the method, but really the magic is the methodology.
23:55
So that’s why it’s only a 8 hour workshop, but all the profound insights are gained there and now the tool is inside the CRM implementing it in a way that now everybody’s in the CRM using it.
24:08
So that’s that is I agree it shouldn’t just be let them go take it and run with it.
24:12
The success rate I think is going to be low.
24:15
Oh yeah.
24:16
Now I, we get calls all the time where people are like, Hey, can you get us a demo of, you know, CRM and I’ll be like, eventually we get you a demo.
24:27
But I mean, I mean, if you go out like what we’d really like to just start with the trial.
24:31
Can we start and install the trial like you can, but you won’t be happy because you’re what you’re going to be super, super frustrated and super upset and you’re not going to move forward because you’re just going to have a horrible experience.
24:47
You know, this, this isn’t like you’re saying I’m not installing Candy Crush.
24:52
You know, these are complex systems.
24:55
You know, there’s a lot of work involved to get these things set up and aligned to truly support your business.
25:00
You know, and great, there’s a trial, but you know, it’s no, you don’t start there.
25:07
You’re putting the cart way ahead of the horse.
25:10
Yeah.
25:10
And to what you do a lot in terms of business process reengineering and all that.
25:14
One of the big things is the the idea of garbage in, garbage out.
25:17
So let’s say you even can figure out how to use some of these things.
25:21
What is your data like?
25:22
Because if your data is all messed up now, you’re just going to be pushing bad data through.
25:27
It’s the same as when back in the old days, anybody that’s been around long enough, I remember when we went from manual systems to like relational databases.
25:35
And the relational database is a great tool, but it’s only as good as the data that’s inside there.
25:40
And as we know, per your book, which is sitting right here on my right here, I should have it here.
25:46
I’ll get it if I don’t knock something over.
25:49
There we go right there it is.
25:51
So, you know, in your book it points out that unless you, you know, people don’t like CRM systems just because they’re hard to use and everything like that.
26:00
But with something like SOS where it’s designed to help sales sell, now the data is going in live, it’s objective, it’s checkable, it has to be defensible and it’s living in the CRM already.
26:14
So what I find is that people are using SOS app inside Dynamics or Salesforce, they don’t even think about it being ACRM and they’re already inside of there and we’re tracking everything, every state, yes, every state change of the sales process because that is how things are tracked.
26:31
And that’s OK as long as they understand the concept of focusing on the buyer and working through the buyer’s process.
26:38
So there’s a lot there.
26:40
It’s not to be taken lightly.
26:41
And why so many people’s CRM systems do suck.
26:45
Unfortunately they do.
26:46
It’s like they, they, they are treating it.
26:49
I like it’s Candy Crush and they’re not thinking like, hey, I, my business, we have complex processes.
26:55
We have handoffs between teams.
26:57
There’s a lot of stuff going on as we engage a customer and take them through their journey.
27:02
A lot of stuff happening, a lot of stuff we have to track and follow.
27:06
And then once we sign that customer, that’s when the real work begins.
27:11
You got to transfer all that information to the enablement team, the success team, whatever you want to call it.
27:17
Whoever’s going to take over that that relationship, that all has to be managed.
27:23
It has to be seamless and provide an incredible experience for the customer, especially if you’re in your current revenue model.
27:29
Those first three months are critical to driving your renewal rates, you know, at the end of the contract term.
27:38
And and so often times people are like, hey, 90 days out, I need to engage them, make sure they’re happy.
27:43
So they renew them like, oh, that’s way too late.
27:46
Yeah.
27:47
Oh, yeah, for sure.
27:48
And that was traditional just because of the license was coming up for renewal.
27:51
But yeah, that that’s, that doesn’t cut it these days at all.
27:56
So if I’m I’m reading your book art and I’m like, hey, this is really resonating with me and I reach out and we say, let’s get to work.
28:07
What does that look like?
28:08
What’s a typical engagement for you?
28:10
When you engage with a client?
28:13
How do you get started and drive them to the outcome they’re seeking?
28:17
Well, no, no surprise.
28:19
I use my own methodology.
28:22
So, so it’s all about discovery and finding out what they’re really trying to do.
28:26
What are their needs?
28:27
And, you know, we could talk about this as a separate thing, but you know, there’s an expression of the customers always right and they aren’t always right.
28:35
And it doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
28:37
It means they only have a part of the picture.
28:38
So what I do is I work with them in terms of what are they really trying to do?
28:42
What’s possible that they could do before I even start to propose anything.
28:46
And I have the luxury.
28:48
And at the same time, it’s a little bit of a, a challenge of so many things that I could offer.
28:52
I, it would not make sense for me.
28:54
And this I think everybody can relate to this, whatever products you have.
28:57
When I was doing software sales, if a client came to us and said we want a demo, kind of like what you were saying, it’s like, well it would take me 3 days to demo everything I have, you know, do you got three days?
29:08
So it always starts for me with an analysis of what they’re doing, find out what their systems are.
29:13
And then it definitely buy in from top management.
29:17
And ideally where it’s somebody that is over sales and pre sales while they can be done separately.
29:23
And then it’s a matter of what to apply.
29:25
And then it’s some workshops and a lot of everything I do, it’s based on real life, their real life opportunities.
29:33
So the examples are theirs.
29:35
The workshops are called workshops because we’re work at workshopping through real opportunities.
29:40
And by the time they’re done with that 8 hour workshop, they have a totally different perspective on their their opportunity ’cause we’re using the tool in the workshop and the methodology.
29:50
It’s fun.
29:51
It’s a lot of fun because I see, you know, I often thought about like charging based on how much revenue I help somebody generate ’cause I think I’d be a multi quajillionaire by now.
30:02
You know, that’s not the way it works.
30:05
But the fun is in seeing them to realize, Oh my gosh, there’s something totally different.
30:09
I was doing a workshop for somebody who had one approach.
30:13
They saw what we were talking about.
30:15
They flipped the approach and within a couple days they said they were going to redo their their whole presentation and their whole in in interaction.
30:23
He got back to me and he said that because of the changes, it resulted in like $134 million worth of recurring revenue of a multi year contract that they would not have got if it wasn’t for that one little flip.
30:38
So it’s exciting to see that type of thing.
30:40
So that’s what I do.
30:46
What’s that?
30:48
I think you should reconsider how you price if you’re I know, I know, I know.
30:51
Yeah, let’s get a percentage.
30:53
Well, of course, you know, that’s their revenue, not their margin or Yeah, No, I don’t.
30:57
Nonetheless, yeah, it’s fun, fun to think about that, but it’s through.
31:00
Also seminars, keynotes, sales kickoffs are a great opportunity to unify the team where you have everybody together.
31:08
That’s an ideal thing to get some of these concepts started.
31:11
And I go through, you know, what are the responsibilities of sales and pre sales?
31:15
That’s not often discussed.
31:17
And then what happens prior to and after they get involved, that’s not often discussed.
31:22
So we can start with some of those fundamentals and go from there.
31:25
You know, it’s very similar when we implement CRM, I warn people, look, we’re going to put a spotlight on your processes and we’re going to uncover stuff that you guys have been living with but maybe not thinking about.
31:41
And so be prepared for some pain, you know, some discomfort may not quite be pain, but at least some discomfort as we uncover these things.
31:50
Because if we don’t, if we’re not talking about those and truly creating that unification in that that incredible experience, not just for your team, but for the customer, because that’s ultimately what we care about.
32:02
We need to strip away the bad stuff so we can start focusing on what what’s left that’s good and strong and viable.
32:10
And then let’s start growing it from there.
32:14
Yep, absolutely.
32:15
And it, you know, this is where the engineer in me comes out because I like process and I like data and I like to have, you know, continuous improvement and all those types of things.
32:25
So that curiosity factor and other things really can help to uncover that.
32:29
But in the end, as we’ve talked about when we were at the conference, people processing tools, it’s a 3 legged stool.
32:35
You know, any one of those are falling down, it’s not going to work.
32:39
And that’s why CRM systems, you know, people don’t like it, so they don’t use it.
32:44
So therefore that’s a huge tool that they should be using.
32:46
That leg of the stool is broken.
32:48
And oh, by the way, for everybody out there that’s listening, if you think you’re doing a band or medic or Med pick or Miller ***** or anything else, how much are you really using that?
32:58
Is it just a concept you have or is it really embedded?
33:01
Because when I ask the question, I find out that there’s maybe one table that has some fill in the blank text stuff that’s very two-dimensional that people don’t want, want to fill that out, they want something.
33:13
And that’s where the the SOS methodology comes into play.
33:16
It’s like 4D, you know, all of a sudden with all the things that it can provide.
33:21
And by the way, I do have a walkthrough video on my website.
33:24
So it can explain what the potential is.
33:27
Even if you don’t use that though, the concepts in the book are super helpful for your team.
33:32
What are some of the things that the common mistakes or issues, pain points, however you want to term it that you see businesses are making today that you really think your, your methodology in, you know, the, the engagements that you provide can help resolve?
33:51
Well, part of it is historically there’s a lot conspiring against pre sales and sales working together if we just focus on that part of it.
33:58
So one of the mistakes is just to do things because you’ve always done it that way.
34:04
There’s a mindset difference.
34:05
There’s a makeup and personality style that’s different.
34:09
It has to be at the manager level and even at ASVP level, whether it’s the sales SVP or the, the, the OPS person or a, you know, COO somebody pretty high up to say, you know what, we aren’t working together well enough.
34:24
Because here’s what I find happen is I’ll train pre sales and that’s a lot of times where it starts because they just are curious and want to do that improvement, right?
34:32
They do all that stuff.
34:33
And one of the biggest questions that I get is when is sales going to learn some of this?
34:38
You know, they’re like, this is great stuff.
34:40
Sales should be learning this stuff because my sales Rep isn’t doing this.
34:43
So I think being really, really honest in turn inside that some of that pain or revelation that you’re talking about, being honest about how well is it working.
34:51
And again, the studies show 37% is being left on the table just in terms of improving the way the teams work together.
34:59
That’s huge.
35:00
That can make or break somebody’s ear and it’s all about that connection.
35:04
So we know that salespeople unfortunately come and go and you know, usually it’s the the Jack Walsh thing or whatever it was, you know, fire the bottom 20% all the time or whatever.
35:14
I’m not a big subscriber to that because if they’re trained properly, then you’re investing in them.
35:20
This long time customer I’ve had for 20 years, believe it or not on the methodology and they’ve only been using the app since 2017, but still they, I kept track of all the rosters and very many times we’d have all these people, we’d move off, not here anymore, not here anymore.
35:37
Well, in the last 10 years that’s only like two or three people per year because they’re probably training their people now sales is there and they have a long term relationship inside and with their clients.
35:49
So that’s I think the biggest mistake, Chris, in terms of the fundamentals of how is the team operating and facilitating ways for them to operate better, even with your existing systems and things.
36:01
It’s that people part at a minimum and then the process can be added.
36:05
And then now you’ve got the the idea of the tools that support it.
36:08
Yep, Yep.
36:09
I love that.
36:11
What advice would you have for someone that, hey, I’ve got arts book, I read through it.
36:17
What should I be doing next?
36:20
Yeah, well, in the book the the unique thing about the book also is that there’s an activity worksheet that goes with it.
36:26
So you can take the book and chapter by chapter apply what you learn with your SO sales, get the book and grab your SESE, grab your salesperson, take a real life opportunity, get the worksheet, which is totally free.
36:40
Just got to request it on my website and work through it.
36:43
Each of the parts of the book has an activity that says, now apply this to your opportunity and take a look at that and see what’s there.
36:51
So that’s what I would recommend to do.
36:53
And then of course it’d be ideal to have a sales kick off a keynote, something that grounds and and helps everybody understand that’s driven by the upper management.
37:03
So it’s sort of bottom up from sales and pre sales working together at the the opportunity level and then sales management working at the organization level.
37:13
Yeah, we’re coming up on our time here on this episode of sales Lead Dog Art.
37:18
I wish this is one of those times where a band, I wish we could just keep going.
37:22
We’ll have to have you back.
37:23
I think we go deeper.
37:25
If people want to reach out to you, Art connect with you.
37:29
If they want to work with team sales development or just connect to to build a relationship and network, what’s the best way for them to do that?
37:37
Two ways.
37:38
Primarily it’s the my website, teamsalesdevelopment.com.
37:43
There’s plenty of opportunities and a lot of resources there.
37:46
My my workshop, my webinars, my presentations and a bunch of things are there and some articles and stuff.
37:52
And then the other one is through LinkedIn.
37:54
So I’m the only art from with two MSARTFROMM.
38:00
So if you just look me up like that, you can find me there.
38:03
And you could certainly search Amazon as well.
38:05
But I’d say the website or LinkedIn is a more robust set of resources for you and you can connect, can connect with me that way.
38:12
And I will attest to arts website is really good.
38:16
I’ve had two tabs of his website open on my computer for the last week and a half going through content.
38:22
There’s a lot of good stuff on his website.
38:25
So be sure to check that out.
38:26
If you didn’t get any of that, don’t worry.
38:28
We have it in our show notes.
38:30
You can get that at Impeller CRM/ sales lead dog where you’ll find not only this episode plus our 150 plus episodes of sales lead dog.
38:39
So be sure to check that out, get the show notes, connect with Art, and be sure to subscribe so you get all our future episodes.
38:46
We greatly appreciate that.
38:47
Art, thank you so much for coming on Sales Lead Dog and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog pack.
38:53
Thank you very much.
38:54
I appreciate it.
38:55
And thanks everybody for listening.
38:56
And let’s go make it happen.
38:58
It only counts if we put it in action.
39:00
Thanks, Chris.
39:01
Appreciate it.
39:04
As we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog, be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media.
39:12
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39:15
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39:25
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