0:01
Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith.
0:09
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.
0:27
Welcome to sales lead dog.
0:29
On today’s episode, I have joining me Brian view President and CFO of Fin Locker, joining us here on this episode.
0:37
Brian, welcome to sales Lead dog.
0:40
Thanks for having me.
0:41
And I love the title of this podcast.
0:43
Oh, yeah.
0:45
I wanted it to stand out.
0:46
Right.
0:46
Sales lead dog, if you’re not in front, your view never changes.
0:50
Yep.
0:51
And it’s not the best view.
0:53
Well, it’s not.
0:57
So Brian, tell me a little bit about Finlocker.
1:00
Yeah, so I’ve first of all, I’ve been with Finlocker for just about five years.
1:05
I’m a career mortgage guy, if you will.
1:08
So pretty much my entire post collegiate career was in the mortgage space.
1:12
And five years ago, I, I, I came over to lead Finlocker and we’re a technology, you know, a SAS technology platform that serves today primarily the, the housing and finance industries.
1:28
And the best way to think about our product from a consumer perspective is we’re, we’re the mash up ofmint.com meets Credit Karma meets Rocket Money meets Zillow.
1:40
We take features that consumers, especially early journey, first time home buyers are going to go out and find out there and we bring all those features into one cohesive consumer experience.
1:52
We, we brand it to a lender, so we license it to lenders, brand it to the lender.
1:58
And then on top of those tools that I, you know, compared which people could probably get budgeting, goal setting, you know, real estate search, etcetera.
2:06
We then build a very specific consumer journey that is a guided experience to get somebody that’s not yet ready for home buying and financing, get them to a place where they’re confident when it’s time to buy and apply.
2:22
And, and we do that typically, like I said it with lenders as our partner who are the distribution of the product.
2:31
There’s so much noise out there.
2:33
When you think about the financial industry, it sounds like Finlocker is a way for your customers to really cut through that noise.
2:42
Yeah.
2:42
And, and try to make a customer for life.
2:44
Is that accurate?
2:45
You, you, you’ve been reading the, the, the website.
2:48
Yeah, we, that’s exactly how we think.
2:50
And, you know, and today, especially just thinking about the, the macroeconomics, think of if you think of housing in particular, the headlines, there’s two headlines that are screaming in the national news media.
3:01
Lack of inventory, which is leading to continued escalating home prices and then high interest rates, historically high interest rates.
3:10
Now you used to be able to say relatively high now, now we’ve reached historical high interest rates, which when you, when you, when you think about the interest rates, it with A7 in the front instead of a 3-4 or five, there’s now affordability challenges.
3:28
And so for first time home buyers, it’s hard.
3:32
Not only is there a lot of noise, it’s just really hard.
3:35
It’s competitive.
3:35
There’s there’s homes getting, you know, multiple bids.
3:38
There’s, there’s, there’s somewhere in the magnitude of 30 million of age consumers who would otherwise be a normal first time homebuyer over the last, you know, two years.
3:50
And it’s probably going to continue for the next two plus years.
3:53
So this balloon is going to continue to expand.
3:56
And so from a lender perspective, you know, 5-10 years ago, if, if somebody was ready to buy a home, they went to a realtor, they looked at homes and then they were met, they’re matched to a, a loan officer, they applied and they were off to the races.
4:12
That process would have been maybe, you know, 120 a 160 days, whatever that normal process would have been.
4:18
Well, now you’re talking about that same 120 a 160 day process that now has about a 18 month lag or lead in where people are just needing to address their financial situation to get ready and wait for properties to become available.
4:35
So, you know, a tool like like ours is, is really I, I actually think of it, which is one of the reasons I was excited to talk to you about this.
4:44
I think of it as a extender to a traditional CRM where you know, typically you would, you would take someone that’s in that period of time and make sure they’re in your CRM and have meaningful messaging that that is delivered on a timely basis to that consumer to keep them connected to you.
5:03
And thinking of you as they’re getting ready was time goes on, people are forgetful.
5:09
And so you, there’s other tools that could be helpful in engaging that same consumer in conjunction with CRM.
5:15
And that’s one of the things that our I think our product does really, really well.
5:19
Yeah.
5:20
And that’s the thing that it’s like you’re second for like a few years ago.
5:24
Heck, you want to buy a house, Let’s just go, we’ll go buy a house.
5:26
You don’t really even have to plan for it.
5:28
You could just go do it now.
5:30
Like I talked to my daughter, who’s 24, graduating, leaving grad school here in a month, thank God, off my payroll.
5:39
And but she’s in that that transitional period where, hey, I want to start.
5:43
What are my options to buy a house?
5:45
And she’s scared to death because it now she’s got a build a plan, she’s got a like, how am I going to do this?
5:53
So is sales leadership for your customers.
5:56
They’ve got to change how they’re going after that market, right?
6:00
Oh, yeah, yeah.
6:01
I just before we, we, we got on this, I did a a panel session for a group of loan officers.
6:07
And, you know, it was a mastermind, I guess.
6:10
I’m not sure how I made I made the dais in that with that type of title, but one of the one of the recurring themes for this 2 hour talk was the how hard it is for loan officers and by extension, how hard it is for consumers, especially younger cohort consumers who want to own homes and have A and what your daughter is going through needing to have a plan.
6:39
I actually, I really believe that the single best resource for someone like your daughter who is wanting to understand her options and and how to plan best for buying a home.
6:52
Her single best resource for education and preparation is a loan officer, someone that’s local that understands the market, the community, but also understands that.
7:03
And here’s why I think that real quick, I’m sure with with your daughter’s situation, she probably has not yet amassed enough assets to get on the radar of a financial planner, right?
7:15
And so it’s highly likely that when she does decide that she’s ready to buy a home, that home is going to end up being the biggest asset on her balance sheet.
7:24
And then the mortgage against the home will be the corresponding biggest liability on the balance sheet.
7:29
And absent like a real financial planner, she’s left on her own and probably going to lean on you for a lot of help and advice.
7:38
Where the loan officer is, I think, perfectly positioned to, you know, be that that kind of guided resource through the preparation process and start to explain and help understand how this asset and liability are going to fit into that consumers financial life post acquisition of the home.
8:00
So that’s a lot of what we, I talk about a lot from a, you know, sales leadership, I guess, perspective or thought leadership perspective.
8:08
You know, five years ago, loan officers were sort of order takers.
8:12
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
8:14
Order takers.
8:15
Not anymore to and, and, and the, the lifespan of a, you know, getting a consumer that started with you and and then transacted.
8:23
Maybe it was 90 days, maybe 120 days at most.
8:26
Now.
8:27
Now, as a loan officer, you have to be really skilled at relationship management, be compassionate and and patient and be willing to play a, a, a long game of 18 or longer months to, to, to earn the right to win the business.
8:46
You know, when that, when, when everything lines up.
8:49
Yeah.
8:49
Yeah.
8:50
You’ve had a great career so far, Brian.
8:52
I hope it keeps going for a long time.
8:54
When you look back over that.
8:55
Yeah.
8:56
When you look back over that career, what are the three things that have really driven and led to your success?
9:02
Yeah.
9:03
I mean, the, the, the first thing is people, right?
9:07
I was very fortunate to have people in leadership positions early, very, very early in my career who I, I didn’t know at the time that they were, you know, playing this mentor role.
9:21
I didn’t even know what that word meant, frankly, when I got into the working world.
9:26
But as I, you know, reflect back and I try to give back and help people, you know, I could, I could point to, you know, a handful of people in business, not just in my company, but in business that always seem to be willing to help and truly help.
9:43
And, and I felt like they all, they always had my best interests over theirs and maybe the companies even.
9:49
And so I would say people #1 #2 for me, it was this innate fear of losing, fear of failure.
10:05
So I just even today, you know, being 56 years old, I still have this, you know, maybe it’s turned into a distaste or almost hatred for losing.
10:19
But but that’s a big piece of it.
10:20
That’s a draw, a driver for me.
10:22
I think at times I may be, I might hate losing more than I like winning, if that makes sense.
10:29
Oh, yeah.
10:32
And and 3rd, for me, I think a lot of a lot of fortunate things that that happened over time and I was in the right position to be able to take advantage of those, which I also think maybe ties into the first one, which is, you know, being around the right people that truly were looking out for me.
10:54
Yeah.
10:54
Yeah.
10:55
Did you always want to be in sales?
10:58
I don’t think so.
11:00
I mean, when I went to school, went to Michigan State, go Green.
11:03
I know you have a little affiliation there.
11:06
Love the Spartans.
11:07
Spartans, Right on.
11:10
So when I was at Michigan State, I was studying in the social science college with an emphasis on human resources and economics with, with a belief, I guess at the time that I was going to probably be somewhere in, you know, the HR world, whatever that meant.
11:30
And then when I graduated college, it was time to go, you know, get real and find a job.
11:34
And there weren’t, there weren’t tools back then like LinkedIn and, and zip recruiter and all those.
11:39
So you literally had to build, build your resume, print it and then go take it to places, right.
11:47
And so I started doing that and, you know, one of the places that I guess called me back was this mortgage company.
11:55
And while I would have loved to have been in the HR department, I’m sure glad I didn’t go that route because I was my first full day on the job.
12:03
I was what I was what we now would call a modern day CRM.
12:08
I was ACRM on my first day on the job.
12:11
I, I took a stack of papers with a name and a phone number and a number with a percentage after it.
12:19
Today I know that as an interest rate, but back then I’m wasn’t really sure what it was.
12:22
And my job was to call every day.
12:26
I had a stack and I would have to call through that stack and ask a simple question if, if we could, if we could take your 10 1/2 percent, reduce it by two percentage points, would you be interested in a refinance?
12:39
If they said yes, I put it to the right.
12:41
If they said no, I threw it away.
12:43
I disposed of the lead, right.
12:46
And so after doing that, like for a couple weeks as I was starting out and basically I was screening filtering leads for a loan officer, right?
12:56
And then I started watching the loan officers that would take the yes pile and convert them into refinance transactions.
13:03
And I’m like, and I could hear what they’re saying and what they’re doing.
13:06
I’m like, A, that’s not that hard.
13:10
And B, based on the way these conversations like are going, I could tell that the people on the other end are truly getting value and, and getting a benefit from this, this sale.
13:21
And so I kind of got, I got the bug by understanding that what we were doing was really economically beneficial for consumers.
13:30
And so throughout my career in mortgage, I’ve never felt like I had to sell anything because I, I was so locked into the value of home ownership and the value that we or I or, or us as an industry bring that it never, ever has felt like selling, Right, Right.
13:49
You know, it’s funny, I, I don’t think a lot of people think of, hey, I need to go get a loan, but that’s like a selling transaction.
13:58
But it really is, you know, because you want to make sure you’ve got someone who knows what they’re doing that understands what I need and they’re steering me the right way.
14:06
They’re not screwing me in the process, right?
14:08
Yep.
14:09
Yeah.
14:09
Nobody wants a mortgage.
14:11
Everybody wants to get the home and the keys to get in the home.
14:14
The mortgage is, is, you know, is necessary.
14:17
It’s a necessary step along the way.
14:19
Yeah, yeah.
14:20
And a lot of times you’re talking to your realtor like, hey, who do you recommend?
14:24
You know, so as a mortgage broker, I need to have one heck of a referral network if I want to eat.
14:33
Because people aren’t usually pulling out the Yellow Pages or going online and saying, you know, because you’re just hoping, you know, you, you, you, you want to have someone that is trusted and, and trustworthy.
14:46
Yeah.
14:46
What’s what’s really interesting today, you know, looking at it in 2024 versus 1991 when I started doing this, the referral source is still probably the, you know, the realtor as a referral source for loan officers probably is still the most common channel for how home buyers are getting introduced to, to loan officers.
15:08
But I’ll tell you that starting to shrink every day.
15:11
And based on what we open this conversation with, with this, this pent up population of, you know, wannabe home buyers, Realtors have the same problem.
15:21
They have this massive, this massive pool of people they need to stay in contact with.
15:26
And so they’re they’re actually relying more on the loan officer today to keep that consumer warm and get them financially ready.
15:36
And loan officers are starting to figure out quickly that in this market especially, they’re probably the place that a home buyer needs to go first before they go talk to a realtor.
15:48
And So what what I’m watching, and I’d be really curious if you’re seeing this across other industries.
15:53
I’m watching the the proliferation of social and loan officers in particular, because I’m in that space taking to social media, building their own personal brand and building it around this concept of financial education, financial preparation for home ownership.
16:11
Yeah, and be and becoming the true top of the funnel in their communities and and they’re kind of flipping the script now and they’re now matching their buyers to agents in their community.
16:24
That’s amazing really.
16:27
It’s like you think of any industry, there’s ups and downs, there’s changes, there’s economic pressures, it there’s never any industry where things are constant.
16:36
So you as a sales leader, you constantly have to be adapting, looking for how do we stay not only where we’re at, but how do we grow.
16:45
And as everything’s changing around you, that’s not exactly an easy job.
16:49
How do you approach that in your role at, at Finlocker?
16:54
Yeah, well, I’ll, here’s how I’ll, I’ll, I’ll explain it because I’ve had to be that I’ve had to be the leader and the lead sales guy because we’re a startup, right?
17:03
We’re a, we’re a, you know, as close to bootstrap as you can get in terms of a, of a tech startup.
17:09
And so I’ve, you know, basically at the age of, call it 5152, I had to reinvent myself.
17:17
I’d I’d managed salespeople or LED sales organizations probably for the last two plus decades and hadn’t, I hadn’t had the responsibility of what I’ll, I’ll say frontline, you know, revenue generation where I kind of own the PNL but didn’t have to quote UN quote do the work.
17:34
But, but here I’ve had to, I’ve had to play that all those roles.
17:38
And that’s just, we’re just in that roll up your sleeves and get it done mode.
17:42
And so I’ve had to reinvent myself, which means I had to find ways to be relevant in this industry.
17:48
And we’re selling into mortgage companies and loan officers.
17:51
And, and while I’m watching them become more visible on social, I’m like, I guess I have to figure this out.
18:00
And so I’ll give you just a quick case study and hopefully this helps people kind of think about the channels that are out there.
18:06
And I think you and I probably connected through this channel LinkedIn.
18:09
So in 2023, exiting 2022 into 2023, we, we had to, we had to grow our business.
18:17
We had to figure this out because the market just wasn’t going to be in our favor.
18:20
We’re going to just grind this thing out.
18:23
Bootstrap didn’t have a big massive budget for marketing and, and brand building.
18:28
And so I, I, because I’ve been on LinkedIn from the early days, I’ve built a pretty good following mostly in mortgage.
18:35
And so I just made the commitment that I’m going to go all in for a full year, full calendar year on LinkedIn, on my personal LinkedIn, right.
18:43
We’ve been trying our business page and it grew, but it just kind of flattened out.
18:48
And then business pages on social just generally don’t get engagement.
18:52
People don’t engage with inanimate objects businesses, they engage with people at businesses.
18:59
And so I just started going all in on my own profile.
19:02
I, I had this, this goal or objective to post.
19:07
This is crazy and I don’t recommend it, but I posted four day, four times a day, Monday through Friday, three times a day Saturday and Sunday in a way to kind of hyper, you know, put gas in the fire on the algorithm.
19:20
I’ve since dialed it back and I’ve kind of found my voice and and I lean in on that.
19:25
But I had a million and a half views on my personal profile in the full year 2023.
19:31
I don’t know if that’s good.
19:32
I don’t know if it’s a lot.
19:33
I don’t, I really don’t know.
19:34
But what I do know is doing what I did impacted our business.
19:39
Our pipeline grew.
19:41
We had more inbound activity as as I went out to industry conferences and events people, first thing I would say is, Hey, I love your content, you know, and I always mixed in some personal family stuff.
19:54
So there I have a professional baseball player son.
19:56
That would be like the common question, how’s your son doing?
19:59
And it it’s to the point now where if I’m at a conference and I’m meeting somebody for the first time and they’re following me because of how often I do post, people already know my story and they’ve already connected my story to Finlocker.
20:14
And typically those first conversations are like, all right, I need to really understand what Finlocker does, how it’s going to help our business.
20:20
So I’m a huge proponent and fan of the LinkedIn platform.
20:25
It’s it’s worked for me.
20:26
And if you’re out there and you’re building, you know, a sales business as a leader or your job is the frontline sales, and especially if you’re B to BII think you need to be on LinkedIn and you you need to be you need to make that part of your job.
20:42
And and I’ll I’ll say this, I actually treat it as my CRM today.
20:47
It is it is an extension of my CRM.
20:50
I I’m in it.
20:51
I’m in LinkedIn more than I am in my CRM, honestly.
20:54
Yeah, you know, the, I think the theme or the message or the take away from what you just told me or what I heard there is you have to pick a strategy and you have to commit to it.
21:06
You have to be all in on it.
21:07
You can’t just dip your toe in the water and hope it’s going to transform whatever you’re doing.
21:13
You it’s about execution, right?
21:16
Yeah, it’s consistency and then consistent consistency will lead to execution.
21:22
But you’re right, you can’t say I’m going to try this post and if it doesn’t go anywhere, I’m going to give it up and try again in 30 days that your first post is going to be terrible.
21:31
Your first video, if you do video, is going to be absolutely horrendous.
21:34
You just got to get over it and power through it and get to the next one.
21:37
Yeah, you know, it, it’s in my world.
21:41
You know, it, it’s about like, hey, we’ve we’re doing all this work to generate leads.
21:45
And a common complaint I hear all the time is like from owners, CEOs or, you know, the the sales leadership is like, we’re spending all this money to generate leads and the sales team has given up after one or two phone calls or an e-mail like, oh, I didn’t get back from moving on to the next one.
21:59
It’s like you just, you just want deals to fall in your lap.
22:02
Let’s just we’ll grab people, we’ll put them in your lap.
22:04
How about that?
22:06
You know, it’s like you got to go after them.
22:07
You’ve got to have that consistency.
22:09
You have to have that.
22:11
You know, it takes time to to get people to engage with you.
22:15
And so, yeah, that that’s the other part that I was thinking about as you were talking about this.
22:19
It’s like there’s no silver bullet.
22:21
There’s nothing easy about what we do in sales.
22:25
I mean, there’s a lot of us out there in this, in these roles selling to a lot of us, right.
22:32
And so we are, we all have day jobs and we all have things we’re trying to do and people are trying to sell us.
22:37
And am I going to answer the first e-mail that comes across somebody, you know, as a as a pitch?
22:43
No.
22:45
But if I’m seeing that person’s stuff on LinkedIn and I’m liking it, I’m engaged with it more often.
22:49
Maybe they’re engaging with my stuff on LinkedIn.
22:52
And then 3045, sixty days on the road, I get the same e-mail again.
22:56
I’m like, Oh yeah, Chris was commented on on my last three posts.
23:02
Boom.
23:02
I’m going to, you know, probably going to reach back out to you.
23:04
Yeah, yeah, that’s the other part too.
23:07
Is that like I’ve talked to people that they’re like, hey, you know, one of the strategies I use on LinkedIn that’s worked really well is there’s somebody I’m targeting.
23:15
I’m a follow them on LinkedIn and everything they do, I’m a like, because they’re going to see that and say, who is this guy or gal that’s liking all my stuff?
23:25
Oh, let’s see what they do.
23:27
Oh, that.
23:27
I maybe I want to talk to them.
23:29
Oh, yeah.
23:29
Guess what else is going to happen when you’re liking their stuff?
23:33
Your stuff’s going to show up in their feed.
23:35
Yeah, yeah.
23:36
It’s, it’s crazy.
23:38
It is, It is, It’s.
23:40
So it’s having that, that understanding and that commitment to do the work.
23:45
Yeah.
23:45
People, I got a lot of times I get this.
23:47
Well, I just don’t spend a lot of time on social media and like, then, you know, you’re probably not going to be a successful salesperson and in the future because that’s where certainly a lot of our, the current generations kind of spend a lot of time and that’s where the next Gen.
24:02
definitely spends a lot of time.
24:04
Yeah.
24:04
Oh, yeah, yeah.
24:05
And I’m not saying like, you know, dance on TikTok or stuff like that, Right.
24:09
Right.
24:10
I’ve tried that.
24:10
That doesn’t work.
24:11
It doesn’t work.
24:12
It’s not going to work for us.
24:14
Chris’s dance lessons by Chris on TikTok.
24:17
We got my daughter be horrified.
24:20
Yeah.
24:23
So what’s your strategy, you know, for or recommendations, I guess you have for someone that says, hey, I really like what you’re saying, Brian, that’s I think that could work for me.
24:35
What’s your recommendation?
24:36
How they get started on this?
24:38
How how do I make this happen?
24:40
Yeah, so I think and and we’re talking about this in the context of making it part of your job, your sales, you know, process.
24:49
So and even your sales culture across your team, right?
24:53
Yeah, yes, I think so we’re where I would start is, you know, if you want to relate it to what you’re selling, I think you need to you need to kind of figure out what you want your voice to be on the platform and then never sell, create content, but never sell, right.
25:12
You’re the the quickest way to, you know, get people to either ignore you or, you know, scroll past you is to sell them something while on your content.
25:20
So you got to become I I believe that the the way to build trust and, and and become relevant has become a thought leader on something and then consistently talk about it.
25:32
Share content that supports, you know, whatever it is your, your, your, the theme is share other people’s content that aligns with it.
25:42
So that’s one is, is be be visible through thought leadership.
25:48
And I think it’s a mix of, you know, format.
25:50
So the written, you know, long form you could do, you could, you could do images, you could do video.
25:56
I like to do a lot of video, but the algorithm has a mind of its own and it tends to favor one thing over another and it switches back and forth.
26:06
So you kind of have to play the game a little bit.
26:07
I, I mix my content formats up quite a bit, which is cool because if I do a, if I do a video as an example, and maybe it’s a 92nd video on the importance of educating consumers on, on home ownership, right?
26:21
Well, that transcript from that 92nd video I can turn into one long form, maybe 2 long form posts and probably a dozen short form posts.
26:32
Maybe I can cut the video into 32nd segments.
26:34
So, you know, if you’re smart about your work and you work from the big to the small, you can create these big pieces of content, whether it’s written or video, and then carve it all up and repurpose it.
26:46
The one of the biggest lessons I learned through that year of posting was, you know, not everybody sees every post.
26:55
So don’t be afraid to repost it and maybe switch it up a little bit, Mix it up and don’t be afraid to say the same thing a little bit differently.
27:03
And so I think people get stuck in a rut where they feel like they always have to have original content.
27:08
If if you’re stuffed, if your message is good, keep keep saying the message, just switch it up a little bit.
27:14
Bring, bring other people into the, you know, do something like we’re doing and share a video and, and have a conversation and share that out.
27:21
So I, so I think it starts with producing content.
27:24
It’s tough to get followers if you’re not putting any content out.
27:27
I mean, why would I follow somebody that hasn’t posted anything?
27:30
So I didn’t get to start with creating content.
27:32
You don’t have to go crazy, but start there.
27:35
And then I love your, what you, you mentioned is, you know, you know, if you know who your prospects are and what that, what industries that they’re in, start following those people on LinkedIn and if they’re posting like and comment on their stuff, add value to their comments.
27:52
If something’s really good and you really like it, share it to your network.
27:55
People, people love when you share their stuff, right?
27:59
It’s like the highest form of social compliment.
28:02
It really is.
28:03
And then I, I took this strategy that I actually like I said, I worked it as a like it was my CRM.
28:09
I would set aside time every week to be intentional about reaching out to, to connect with people.
28:17
So don’t just follow them.
28:19
Try to connect and, you know, get that linkage there.
28:23
And then just be consistent, you know, be, be consistent.
28:27
And you know, if you, if you’re, if you’re, if you’re posting every Tuesday at 9:00 AM, make sure you’re posting every Tuesday at 9:00 AM because the algorithm’s looking for it.
28:36
And then your people that are following you eventually are going to be looking for that at that same time.
28:40
Yeah, you know the other part that I got this advice several years ago and I think it’s really good advice about engaging over LinkedIn is treat it like you’re at a cocktail party and you’re get you like you don’t immediately like, hey, hi, I’m Chris, buy something from me.
28:58
You want to ask questions, get to know them.
29:00
You want to build a relationship, you have to do the same thing over LinkedIn.
29:04
Yep, totally agree.
29:06
It’s too many people.
29:07
I, I mean, I get, it happens to me every day.
29:09
We, we had an event where we just put a press release out and we raised some capital and now I’ve got, you know, over the last 24 hours, I’m just getting pounded with DMS.
29:20
And you know, I can tell it’s a lot of them are, you know, BDRS that are just trying to do their job instead of meeting.
29:27
But Oh yeah, there’s no, you know, it’s like they’re going right to the, let’s get on your calendar.
29:31
I’m like, Nope, Nope, Nope.
29:34
Oh, no.
29:34
I love that.
29:35
I I get, I mean, everybody gets inundated that stuff and it’s like, you just can’t be part of that noise.
29:42
Like people like we’re so tuned into that now.
29:44
That is the norm on LinkedIn.
29:46
Everybody’s tuned into it.
29:48
So if you’re, if that’s your strategy, you’re just part of the white noise, you’re going to be ignored.
29:52
Yeah.
29:52
It’s, you know, the DMS on LinkedIn have turned into, you know, kind of the spam folder and your e-mail box as well.
29:59
Oh, yeah.
29:59
Yeah.
30:00
Very much so.
30:04
Excuse me, what’s next for you in terms of, you know, like if you look at the rest of this year, what are you trying to do in your role to help growth your business?
30:19
Yeah.
30:19
So we we just raised some capital and, and a big, big focus for us, this is our series B.
30:26
And so it’s, you know, it’s all about growth now with this capital.
30:30
And so we’re, we’re, we’re starting the process of planning out our, our building a sales infrastructure because it’s been just a handful of us just, you know, rolling up the sleeves and getting after it.
30:42
And so for, for us to scale, we’ve got to be, you know, real thoughtful and intentional around the sales process.
30:48
So, you know, we’re going to add some additional resources that are going to be, you know, doing what, what I’ve been doing.
30:56
And, and one of the other guys that’s part of the team, we’re going to look to add some up funnel resources to help US get in front of the right people at the right time.
31:08
But I’m nervous about it because I just kind of told you what I don’t like.
31:13
And so, you know, with what we need to do at scale, we need to get a lot of a lot of demos, a lot of meetings.
31:21
And so it, there’s going to be this interesting kind of pull and push and pull with what, what I don’t like and what we don’t like and how we don’t like to be treated as a, as a prospect and hopefully do it the right way.
31:35
And so I think we’ll do a lot.
31:37
Well, I’ll continue to do a lot of thought leadership and maybe set, you know, that’ll be like the air cover.
31:42
And then, you know, the engagement underneath it should be a little bit easier because hopefully we’ve done a good job, you know, getting the brand out there through this thought leadership channel.
31:53
Now I, I am so big on that.
31:55
The thought leadership stuff like if you want to stand out, add value, help people through whatever journey they’re on, you know, so that when they’re ready, they know who you are and what you do and you know what you’re talking about, you have a much better shot of, of being the person they’re going to tap on the shoulder and say, hey, I need help, right.
32:16
And you’re, I mean, this podcast is a perfect example of what I, I think like if I take this back to loan officers and local loan officers, I tell loan officers they should have a podcast in their community talking about things that are important in their community.
32:32
And they every week they should talk about a different business in their community.
32:36
They’re like, well, I don’t get it.
32:37
Why would I do that?
32:38
Because businesses love when other people talk about them.
32:42
And guess what?
32:42
Businesses have consumers in the business that work in the business and, and businesses might have referral opportunities.
32:49
And so like this podcast format I’m a huge fan of is a great mechanism for thought leadership.
32:57
And I’m pretty sure I know the answer to this, but it’s also I, I’m, I’m guessing you take these podcast, these, you know, 30 minute conversations and repackage them in a bunch of different formats that help you get, get the brand out there.
33:11
Yeah, there’s like 7 or 8 things we can do in terms of content related to a single episode.
33:17
It’s not.
33:17
So that’s why we started.
33:18
It’s all about content, right?
33:20
And not just being, hey, I want to sell you something.
33:25
It’s like, hey, I want to help you.
33:27
I want to, you know, help advanced everybody and eventually, yes, stuff will come back, you know, as part of that effort.
33:36
Oh, yeah.
33:37
So it’s worth it.
33:37
You know, the juice is definitely worth the squeeze.
33:40
You know, it’s not a heavy approach.
33:42
You’re you’re probably we’re probably very similar in that I don’t think either of us were trained podcasters, not that they’re such a thing.
33:49
But, you know, for the last 30 minutes, we’ve just been having a conversation.
33:52
We just so happened to be recording it.
33:53
And it’s going to be get get shared with millions.
33:56
You said worldwide.
33:57
So.
33:58
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
33:59
And and so shift to the conversation just a bit here.
34:02
CRM, do you love it or do you hate it?
34:06
Both, right?
34:08
I think that’s a very real answer.
34:10
It’s probably the typical answer.
34:12
And I’ll say that I love it and wish I was a better user of the CRM that we have, which is a great, a great tool.
34:25
And so a lot of times in, in our, my industry, you know, I’ll hear people complain about their tech stack or this tech vendor.
34:33
And when you peel back the onion, I’d say probably 7 or 8 times out of 10, they’re using a third of its capability and then saying they hate it.
34:44
And so whatever tech it is that you sign up for, Binlocker included, if you don’t take the time to learn to use it and plug it in where it’s going to have the most value, don’t even bother signing up for it because you’re just going to hate, you’re going to just say you hate it.
35:02
You’re going to go on social and say it doesn’t work.
35:04
And then you’re going to be a churn for me or whoever else.
35:07
So it’s, it’s and I’m not, you know, I’m saying that from a seat where I know I’m not personally using our own CRM to its full capacity.
35:18
That’s another thing I want to do with, you know, with our growth strategy is really perfect that and build it out.
35:25
But that would be my answer.
35:26
It’s it’s love, hate.
35:27
I don’t think there’s such thing as a bad CRM.
35:31
Most of the time when we when I hear about a bad CRM, it’s a bad user of the CRM.
35:36
So yeah, it’s funny.
35:38
I get we get the phone calls all the time.
35:40
Like Chris, we need a new CRM and I’ll ask why.
35:42
Yeah.
35:43
And like, oh, it’s not doing this, it’s not doing this, it’s not doing this.
35:46
But it’s like you said, you peel back the layers of the reason why it’s not doing that is you’ve got crap data, you’ve got bad process that’s wrapped around CRM, and there’s not a piece of technology out there that will fix bad process.
36:00
You have to address those core issues.
36:02
Otherwise you’re just swapping out, you know, what could be a perfectly good CRF or something else that may be a perfectly good CRM, but you’re going to have the same problems.
36:11
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s a, it’s a fascinating conversation to have.
36:18
And I, I would love to go back and just recap your 100 plus episodes you’ve done and just take the snippets of all these answers because it’s probably pretty similar.
36:27
I, I would imagine there’s a lot of really common themes there.
36:31
And I was just on a call last week with they’re like, hey, we don’t have ACRM, we need ACRM.
36:39
And well, you know, as we got into it, you know, there’s so many different themes that come up where I’m just like, Oh my God, please don’t go down that path because I know two years from now where you’re going to be and it’s not where you want to be because of the decisions that go into this.
37:00
A lot of times people are, you know, people will call us and they’ll say, Hey, we need a CRM.
37:06
And my boss told me to call you and but they have no idea.
37:10
And this is the person that’s tasked with leading the CRM and they have absolutely no idea why they even need a CRMI.
37:16
Was going to say that’s the the the very first question is why do you need it and what do you hope to accomplish?
37:22
Yeah, exactly.
37:23
That’s right.
37:24
Yeah, too.
37:25
I think too often, probably with any kind of tech in business, but CRM specific, I think too often we probably buy more than we really need and then we almost set ourselves up for failure.
37:38
And by the way, I think the, the, the CRM providers partially at fault for selling more than the, the buyer needed.
37:47
And so I think there’s, there’s just a lot of, you know, a lot of conversation that needs to happen, honest and thoughtful conversation that needs to happen early on so that you align with, you know, here’s what I need today.
38:00
Maybe in 18 months I’m going to need these other things and it’d be great if you already have them and, and, and, but I’m not going to make my buying decision on whether or not you have something that I don’t even need today, you know?
38:10
Oh, no, exactly.
38:11
It’s like I, I have a friend who told me like, oh, so and so told me I need you to go get, you know, very well known serum platform.
38:23
And I’m just like, oh, I wish you would have talked to me first because she’s like Chris.
38:28
I, it’s expensive.
38:30
I don’t know what the heck to do with it.
38:33
You know, it’s like, I’m spending all this money on this because this person told me, oh, you need to go get ACRM, but they have no clue.
38:40
And I’m just like, Oh my gosh, I wish I could have talked to you first.
38:45
Could have saved you so much pain.
38:47
Oh yeah, you know, so it it is like there’s that illusion that, oh, it’s CRM, it’s easy.
38:53
It’s not, there’s so much stuff because it’s, it’s it’s people, processes and data.
38:57
There’s a lot behind all this stuff.
39:00
It’s not just, oh, it’s not like you’re installing Microsoft Office and now I can open up Word and and whatever, you know, it is a whole different level.
39:09
So well, that’s that’s why I think what you do in the business is so important.
39:15
And buyers of CRMS need to be thinking about what they’re buying is a could be a once in a lifetime purchase, right?
39:25
It should be a once in a lifetime.
39:27
Yeah, but you do this every day across platforms.
39:32
And so, you know, why wouldn’t, why wouldn’t I work with you?
39:37
You know, who does this every day and knows which questions to ask and how to sequence the questions.
39:42
And, you know, so and again, you know, people try to think they’re saving money by, you know, self-serving and they tend, they tend to pay for it in the long haul, usually two or three times.
39:53
But they could have could have paid if they if they partnered with you, somebody like yourself in the beginning.
39:58
No, the worst offenders that I see are are my fellow tech companies that are like tech consultants that implement other technology, not CRM.
40:06
And they’re like up, we can do this.
40:09
They are the biggest train wrecks out there.
40:12
You know, it’s it, it’s funny, Brian, we’ve had our time here on this episode.
40:16
If people want to reach out, they want to connect with you.
40:19
They want to learn more about Finlocker.
40:21
What’s the best way for them to do that?
40:23
LinkedIn Ryan View LinkedIn Follow me Connect.
40:28
That’s that’s the place all my all my contact information is there if you want it, but you got to connect with me to get it.
40:34
There you go.
40:35
If you don’t, if you don’t know where Brian’s, if you’re not able to find his LinkedIn profile, which you should be able to it, it’s pretty easy to find.
40:44
But in case you aren’t able to, we’ll have that link in our show notes for this episode as well as all our episodes of Sales Lead Dog.
40:53
You can get that impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog.
40:56
So be sure to check that out.
40:58
Subscribe.
40:59
So you get not only this episode, but all our future episodes of Sales Lead Dog.
41:03
Brian, thank you for coming on.
41:05
It has been awesome talking to you today and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog pack.
41:10
Oh man, I’m glad to be part of the pack.
41:12
I got to get to the front though.
41:15
Love it.
41:18
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41:26
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41:39
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