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.
0:20
And remember, unless you were the lead dog, the view never changes.
0:26
Welcome to sales lead dog.
0:28
Joining me today is Charlene Thompson.
0:31
Charlene is a sales OPS expert with over 15 years of strategic and hands on experience helping businesses streamline and scale their sales teams.
0:43
And that’s why I’m having her here.
0:45
As the founder of the Sales OPS Effect, she specializes in connecting the dots between sales processes, tech and people to boost performance and drive growth.
0:58
I think you also understand from that statement why I wanted her on sales lead dog because that’s what we’re all about here on sales Lead dog.
1:04
So Charlene, welcome to sales Lead dog.
1:08
Thank you for having me.
1:08
I’m really glad to be here.
1:10
Yeah, I’m, I’m excited to have this discussion with you today.
1:15
Tradition, we have sales leaders on and but today this episode is for you sales leaders that really I think it can help you have a a deeper understanding of how to be effective as a sales leader when it comes from the perspective of someone like Charlene has such deep experience with sales OPS, which is ultimately that’s core to what we’re trying to do with sales leaders.
1:39
So Charlene, I’m going to start off with one question I ask everybody comes on the podcast.
1:43
Then we’re going to jump into the core discussion.
1:45
You’re here to talk about when you look back over your career and you’ve got a lot done, what are the three things that have really driven and led to the success that you’ve been able to achieve?
1:59
Oh, the three things.
2:02
I just three.
2:03
I don’t want more than three.
2:04
Just three.
2:06
I would say, mind you, a divergency.
2:10
I have ADHD, so I naturally just had to find ways to get things done really efficiently because I didn’t always have my brain quite roughly high empathy, extremely high empathy.
2:25
So rather than that being a hindrance, I worked with it or the efficiency.
2:32
And sports, I think I’m going to say I treat business as a sport.
2:40
I played every single sport growing up because again, undiagnosed ADHD had a lot of energy.
2:45
So I see good quality business as a sport so that, you know, you want to do things well, you want to do things quality, you want to make sure everything is primed and ready to go and you want to put your best out there.
2:59
And sometimes, you know, let’s take tennis.
3:01
You might not win, but I kind of feel like there’s a difference from watching too much tennis.
3:08
There’s a difference between losing because the other person won and losing because you lost.
3:15
You know, and I feel like if I’m going to say three things, it’s going to be those.
3:19
Yeah, I love that.
3:21
As someone who has been coping with a wicked case of ADHD, I can totally relate to what you’re saying.
3:31
I used to consider to be my superpower my ability to hyper focus and just get **** done.
3:40
I, I really, I value that aspect of my brain, but I’ve realized I have to balance that in a major way because it also could be a hindrance.
3:51
When you are so good at blocking everything else out, time does not matter.
3:56
And that’s been my biggest struggle.
3:59
I’m convinced we don’t see time.
4:03
Well, time doesn’t really exist.
4:04
I had this conversation this morning.
4:05
It’s something that we’ve put on it to, to to name the passage of whatever we’re dealing with.
4:09
But I’m convinced we see time in whatever it’s real way is, as in we don’t have a set structure to it, which is why it changes so often for us.
4:20
Yeah.
4:21
All right.
4:21
So you are an expert in sales OPS and really helping companies figure that out, companies that are struggling to drive execution in a in a pragmatic way, you know that.
4:33
What are some things that as a sales leader that I should be doing, thinking about to really improve this aspect of my business?
4:41
So when you engage with a client, what are like, what are the 1st 30 days look like for you?
4:48
What are you trying to get done in that first 30 days to really set them on a path towards success?
4:57
Yeah.
4:58
So obviously you want to be talking to people and it comes back to my project management days.
5:03
It’s people process technology.
5:05
There’s a few sets of three that I work with and people process technology is the first one.
5:09
And so obviously I’ve been told by the person who’s brought me in what’s going wrong.
5:15
But you want to make sure you speak to the other people who it’s affecting to ask them what’s actually going wrong.
5:20
Because often you’re being given the tip of the iceberg.
5:24
And so people may know what’s going wrong and they want you to come in and fix X.
5:30
But actually, if you start to talk to people, you realize it’s, it’s not even why it’s, it’s C And that is the much more efficient way to fix the problem without them causing a cascade of other issues that become other people’s problems.
5:46
Because what I try to keep in mind is, is business efficiency, the holistic nature of business, because it’s a relay just fixing sales.
5:56
And that possibly causing a problem for the people coming before you or after you isn’t fixing sales.
6:03
Yeah, you know, and so it’s thinking about it like that.
6:07
So my first 30 days is having those conversations, putting all of those things together.
6:11
I’ve got some stories, particularly around language.
6:13
I kind of want to come back to that if I forget.
6:16
And then looking at the data, because as you know, CRMS, if they’re not done right, it’s all over the shop.
6:22
And in my experience, the quickest way to figure out what’s going on with the CRM is to try to pull reports, try to pull your main reports.
6:33
I have a top 12 that I go to, and if I can’t figure out how to pull those reports really easily, then that’s what will tell me what’s wrong, what fields are missing, what fields are misnamed and people aren’t using, Where’s the missing data?
6:46
That’s the fastest way and that’s what I do in the past eight days.
6:50
I love that you have to serve with people.
6:54
You have to understand what’s going on from that perspective because I see the same thing when people have us come in to rescue a CRM and we’ll ask him, you know, where do you think it went off the rails?
7:08
And it’s always the tip of the iceberg.
7:09
You know, the terms of what we get back.
7:11
We always have to go deeper to find out truly what’s going on in the business and talking to people and asking and, and you know it, it is the best way to find out what’s truly going on so you can then build out that road map.
7:29
Let’s talk about, you know, the people side of things.
7:33
What are some of the common challenges?
7:35
So if I’m a sales leader and I’m thinking, OK, so you’re going to talk to my people, what are some of the common challenges that I should be thinking about as a sales leader that maybe I’m not thinking about and I should be?
7:52
Language.
7:53
I said I’d come back to it.
7:55
Yep.
7:56
People are always surprised when I feedback to them that their people have very different definitions for what the word upsell is, for example.
8:06
And it’s, it never, never stops surprising me.
8:10
But there’s common language, you know, it’s like you can sit in these meetings and people are throwing out these acronyms all over the place.
8:16
And then when you’re actually having a conversation with people, you realize that what they think this word means and what this person thinks this word means different things.
8:27
So First off, we need to get clear on what we’re talking about.
8:31
So there’s that.
8:32
One other thing that I want to mention is that you’re saying from a sales leader, you know, like, what should they expect?
8:38
Not all sales leaders even want me to speak to their sales team.
8:42
Oh, you’re kidding me.
8:43
Oh, I’m not.
8:45
Oh, my.
8:46
Yeah.
8:46
I can see all kinds of issues going on there.
8:49
Exactly.
8:50
And that’s often like the kind of fix it situations that I get brought into.
8:55
That’s often the case, not always, but often the case.
8:58
It’s usually the CEO fed by the CMO or the CFO or the COO that says, hey, can you come and take a look at this please?
9:07
That’s the way around that I get brought in because sometimes the head of sales is the person that’s that’s trying to make things work behind the scenes and they don’t work.
9:17
So things get covered up and all sorts of stories.
9:20
But coming back to the sales leaders that want me to talk to, to their team or what should they expect?
9:27
I’m people speak to me differently from how they speak to their manager because I’m not their manager.
9:33
Sometimes when you have a good relationship with your manager, you might not want to say to them, hey, can you help me with this thing?
9:41
Because you don’t want to look like as if you can’t handle it.
9:45
And in the sales world, there’s a lot of bravado because there has to be a lot of courage, a lot of grit because you get rejected a lot, right?
9:52
And so that kind of personality type or types make it difficult sometimes if you don’t have a robust relationship to say, hey, you’re not actually supporting me on this thing or I need more help from you because you don’t want to make them look or feel bad.
10:09
And you don’t want to make it look like you can’t do your job or like you can’t be trusted.
10:13
But when I’m speaking to them, because they know I don’t have any power over them, I’m just here to help.
10:18
They’re much more likely to say, OK, look, I, I don’t want to say it, but this, this is what actually happened.
10:25
And that’s what went wrong.
10:26
And the managers don’t know.
10:28
They don’t always know.
10:30
Yeah, that goes back.
10:32
I talked about this a lot on the podcast.
10:34
I’ve had a lot of sales leaders that that I think truly have been able to separate themselves from the rest.
10:41
They are able to establish a culture of vulnerability that begins with themselves to where people are comfortable coming to them saying, hey, I am struggling.
10:54
And it’s because that leaders created that that environment where, hey, it’s safe.
11:01
We can’t all be hitting it out of the park all the time, right?
11:04
We all have down cycles.
11:05
We all have things that we struggle with.
11:08
But to, to be able to eliminate that fear of, you know, what’s going to happen to me if I actually go ask for help, you know, being able to eliminate that fear, I think is critical to being successful as a leader.
11:23
Yeah.
11:24
If you want to be successful as a leader, that’s the, if you want to, that’s the, that’s the crux.
11:30
If you just quite like having the title and the prestige, then that won’t bother you.
11:35
But if you want to do well, if you want to lead, if you want to help people grow, and if you want to help the business succeed via those actions, then yeah.
11:45
Yeah, that’s, well, like to think everybody’s got that level of desire that hey, I truly want to be a leader, but not everybody’s like that.
11:55
No, no, I often refer to my, I often refer to myself as a reluctant leader.
12:00
It’s like I don’t have any desire for power, but I’m often in the position or called in to be in the position to have it and to wield it.
12:11
And it’s like, OK, I think maybe, you know, I just am.
12:15
Then that’s probably what it is.
12:16
I just want things to work well and for us to all grow.
12:19
And it’s like, actually, that’s what leaders do.
12:22
And so it took me a long time to learn and accept that rather than, you know, what you see on television growing up for it’s just like I’m the big boss and what I say goes and all that to do.
12:34
That’s just the conversation to process.
12:36
I tell people all the time because they come to us saying, hey, we need help with CRM.
12:42
We needed to fix our sales process.
12:45
We need a new CRM or, you know, we need you to fix our CRM because our sales process, we’re having all kinds of problems.
12:52
And I just don’t look, there’s not a piece of technology out there that can fix that process.
12:57
It can’t happen.
12:58
How do you address in your role, you know, process issues because I see more often than not, that’s really the problem that’s blocking them or the most common ones are they’ve got big problems with process.
13:16
Learn design, agree and then make sure you’re sticking to it.
13:22
You align, you need an operator sales OPS to come in and do those things.
13:28
When you get a piece of technology and expect a piece of technology to give you a process, you’re working with that technology’s preferred process.
13:36
And there’s so many, I don’t know how many, so many different versions of sales processes.
13:43
There’s you know, you know, you know, all of the, the medic and all of the different bats and all the, all the different acronyms.
13:48
There’s so many.
13:49
And you know, if we’re talking about established business here, you already have a process.
13:55
You already have probably a few processes.
13:58
If you don’t know where to start, you can do one or two things.
14:00
Ideally, both go and look at the list of different processes that are available and read them and see which one you agree with as a sales leader.
14:07
Or, you know, we can talk to our team, you can talk to our sellers, and then we can talk to the people who the sellers hand off to the operations team as well to see what actually happens with this full process.
14:19
It goes all the way back to the the old school of what is our customer journey, because what it is on the outside should be reflected on the inside.
14:27
And so no technology can or should tell you that.
14:30
Otherwise you’re just going with that company’s desired process.
14:35
So figure out what’s working in your business.
14:37
When we do this process, do the deals come in thick and fast or does it take a very, very long time?
14:45
And you have those conversations and you get that qualitative data and you look at the quantitative data as well, You know, does it take a long time?
14:50
Do we get big deals?
14:51
Do we get recurring revenue?
14:52
What process are we following that works the best?
14:56
Can we agree on this?
14:58
Cool.
14:58
All right.
14:59
Can we implement that?
15:00
Yes.
15:00
Can we have the technology built in a certain way to support us?
15:04
Yes.
15:04
Can we then make sure we’re aligning to this and people that they’re off the track?
15:08
We’re going to be asking them, why are you doing that?
15:09
Because we know that this process is the one that makes us money.
15:12
So if you’re going to be wearing off that process and trying to jump the gun, then let’s have a conversation as to why.
15:19
Do you really feel that there’s a reason for that?
15:22
You need somebody who can sit down and spend that time and look at the processes to build in because there’s no one-size-fits-all.
15:29
And if, like I say, we’re working with an established company, you have a process that works.
15:32
There’s probably 5, but if you figure out which one works the best, you decide it’s decisions.
15:41
Is is is such a core thing.
15:43
You have to look, figure it out and then decide and then align to it and then address it.
15:48
After a little while you review it.
15:50
Is it working?
15:52
That’s the key part too, I think, is that you have to have that mechanism of review to measure, to really make sure that, yeah, we’ve made this decision, we’re heading down this path.
16:01
Is it working?
16:02
Is it having the impact that we intended?
16:06
Because you’re going to have to adjust.
16:08
There’s nothing perfect right out of the game.
16:11
You have to be able to adjust, which means you have to be able to measure.
16:16
And so how do you recommend they tackle that side of process development?
16:23
Well, your metrics, well, you need to have metrics to measure for a start.
16:30
And in terms of process development, if you, if you, which Angular are you coming from?
16:40
If they don’t have metrics or if they do, let’s talk about the metrics first.
16:44
I was hoping you were going to go there.
16:45
So let’s dial into the metrics first, because what I see a lot of times they don’t have the right metrics.
16:53
They their metrics are far too basic to really measure progress.
17:01
You know that.
17:02
Do you see that a lot?
17:04
Yeah.
17:05
And again, that’s because they don’t have somebody whose job it is to look at it exactly.
17:08
They don’t have a salesperson.
17:10
You end up with basic metrics when the only thing that the sales manager has time for is to look at 3 or 4 things.
17:16
Yeah.
17:17
And to be fair, at the top levels, you only really need to see 3 or 4 things on a regular basis.
17:22
But someone needs to be looking at the other things, the leading indicators that lead to the big numbers.
17:28
And then you got lagging indicators as well.
17:31
There’s all these things and they come back around and they’re cyclical, even going all the way through to what is it, your customer scores, your NPS scores or whatever.
17:38
The higher they are, the more likely you are to get case studies.
17:41
If you get case studies, that makes it easier to bring a new business.
17:44
All of these things matter.
17:45
They just don’t matter every single day in terms of US looking at it.
17:50
But I think that’s where it comes from.
17:51
The, the, the metrics.
17:53
People don’t know what metrics to to look at.
17:56
And then if you don’t have somebody whose job it is to be looking at those metrics and has that mindset, then what are you supposed to do?
18:03
You don’t have the time to be digging in the data and fiddling with an Excel, you know?
18:09
Yeah, I see a lot where they have metrics, but they have no context.
18:14
I can’t tell are they, are we trending up?
18:16
Are we trending down?
18:17
How is this compared to last quarter last year?
18:20
They just have a number and that’s it.
18:22
They just have very basic things that like, oh, hey, we’ve got this much pipeline right now and that means right.
18:30
It’s like, OK, what’s the and how much pipeline are you supposed to have?
18:34
What’s the calculation to make sure if you still maintain the win rate, you’ll get to the same result?
18:39
Exactly right.
18:40
And I see that all the time.
18:42
And I’m like, then you, you might as well not have these numbers.
18:45
They’re not telling you anything, you know, So they’re being read out in meetings to say, yay, we’ve got this number and nothing.
18:52
Because again, nobody’s looking at the, the back end of it.
18:54
It’s just still right.
18:57
And they don’t, they also truly, I see it a lot where they don’t understand what are their leading indicators?
19:02
What are the things that I really have to keep my finger on that pulse to make sure our heart is beating strong?
19:10
I’m just not going to Peter out on me, you know, three months from now, you know that anyway, that that’s a big topic.
19:19
There’s a lot we can talk about there.
19:22
What advice do you have for a sales leader about like I’ve realized listening, if they’re listening to the show, like they’re thinking like, Oh my gosh, that’s me.
19:31
What should I be doing as a sales leader to really start maybe rethinking about my KPIs, the metrics that I’m using to to track what I’m doing and what my team’s doing?
19:46
I think about them in terms of leading and lagging indicators.
19:49
You’re going to need action KPIs and it depends how your sales team is set up.
19:55
If you’ve got like your baby sales people, your SDRS, your sales development representatives, you know, they’re going to be tracked on their calls and things like that.
20:03
But your main business developers?
20:07
You might not feel comfortable tracking them on their calls because, you know, they’re big and grown now.
20:10
They don’t need to be checked out and la, la, la, la, la.
20:12
Cool.
20:13
So then what are you tracking them on?
20:14
How many meetings that they’re having?
20:15
Because that should be really key and clear and that should be in the system.
20:19
You want to know what’s happening.
20:21
You know, we can track them on that.
20:23
And it’s making sure those KPIs aren’t just pulled out of thin air.
20:30
If you don’t have benchmarks in your own business, which again, the people who are speaking to they do.
20:34
But if you don’t have benchmarks in your own business, figure out what the benchmarks are for your industry and then you speak to the team.
20:41
Do these look fair?
20:43
You know, and I’ll tell you, I’ll have to tell you a quick story here.
20:49
It’s making sure you’re finding the KPIs that actually align to the overall business goals.
20:54
Because I remember a situation where some of the head honcho salespeople had such an opinion of what the KPI should be and I got overruled because they were wrong.
21:07
And then when it came to it and when it came to it, they still looked good, but they didn’t do a very good job.
21:15
And actually the company needed to fire them and they didn’t have any suitable KPI to justify why they should be firing that particular salesperson.
21:22
So KPI can be manipulated is one of the things that people need to remember.
21:27
It’s not just about, oh, whatever the standard stuff is.
21:30
It’s what will inspire them to work well but won’t hinder them.
21:36
It has to actively be something that’s a part of their sales process rather than something extra and aligned to the greater business goals.
21:43
And you don’t have to have fifty of them.
21:46
You don’t need to have a ton.
21:48
You just need to have a few that are really well placed, are pivotal and other ones will feed into those naturally.
21:56
That’s, I say that all the time, but there’s for every business, you know, depending upon your role in the business, you have three at most 5 numbers that you need to be monitoring in your role.
22:08
Do you know those 3 numbers?
22:11
You’re, you’re going to be effective in your role.
22:14
You know, if that’s, if you’ve got those dialed in, if you got 50, you’re scatterbrained.
22:21
You’re going to be all over the place.
22:22
You’re not going to know which way to turn.
22:25
So that’s the thing like you got to blow that down to what are those three at most 5 numbers that in my role I need to be monitoring.
22:34
Yeah.
22:34
And that’s, you know, as a salesperson and then as a sales manager, you might be looking at a little bit more.
22:39
If you do do then have sales OPS or a sales analyst.
22:43
They’ve got tons.
22:44
My standard is 12.
22:46
Yeah, that’s mine.
22:48
That’s yours.
22:48
That’s not stuff.
22:49
But I don’t recommend other people.
22:51
Every day you’re looking at all 12.
22:53
If I’m building a dashboard, which I build dashboards so that they’re like newspapers, right, For the sellers when they open up their dashboard in the morning, the top three things are what they need to know to get going.
23:03
Yeah.
23:03
You know, it’s, it’s what’s what’s above the folds.
23:06
The top three things are what they need to know.
23:07
And they can just come in and refresh If they’ve got a little bit more time, you know, coming up to lunch, then they can Scroll down and.
23:12
Oh, yeah.
23:12
OK, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
23:14
But it’s the top three at the top.
23:15
Get ready, go.
23:16
It should be that quick because that’s what they need.
23:19
The managers need a little bit more and they’ll they get a lot more monthly when they get their monthly reports.
23:25
But your back end people like me, like it’s a top 12 and then I can go into all kinds of deep stuff to cut things by different filters.
23:33
But that’s my job.
23:35
You know, that’s what I glad you, you clarified that because I don’t want to give people the wrong impression.
23:40
Oh, I only look at 3 numbers.
23:41
No, of course not.
23:42
But there’s three that you need to monitor.
23:45
You’re then once you, you see something like, hey, we’re off.
23:49
We’re not hitting those 3 numbers or one of our numbers is off, whatever.
23:52
I need to dig deeper.
23:54
So of course you’re going to have other information available to you that’s going to support that.
24:00
But yeah, don’t, don’t go crazy.
24:03
I make sure those 3 numbers are giving you context.
24:07
You know, it can’t just be a number.
24:08
There has to be a context around that number.
24:11
Yeah.
24:12
That and your goal, whatever the goal is for the month, if it’s the number of new opportunities that have been created, OK, So if it’s four right now and it needs to be 8 per person, make sure that’s written somewhere.
24:23
A lot of dashboards you can actually just write in what the goal is.
24:25
If you can’t actively put it into the numbers so that it comes up in the dashboard, write it in.
24:31
Yeah.
24:31
So people don’t have screen contact that it’s like, hey, I, I’ve had four opportunities that there’s no context of that.
24:37
But if I have 4 opportunities that I know 50% of goal now I’ve got context, you know, and that’s what we’re talking about.
24:48
When, what are some of the common things that you think sales leaders are doing to self sabotage or or limit their effectiveness when it comes to driving performance with sales OPS?
25:11
I want to answer that.
25:13
I want to answer a first one with driving performance with the sales team first and now I’ll go to sales OPS.
25:18
One of the things that a lot of sales people, sales managers miss out on is the fact that they end up doing a lot more opportunity coaching or deal coaching rather than pipeline coaching.
25:29
And I’ve had to train sales leaders to do pipeline coaching, like, you know, that needs to come into Tier 1 to ones.
25:35
Yeah, I can come in and do it, but they need to hear it from you so that they know how much it matters Because yes, it’s it’s nice and juicy to get into this really big deal.
25:42
You know, you’re chomping on that all the time.
25:45
But if you don’t make sure your people can zoom in and zoom out so that they’re managing themselves across the pipeline, you’re going to get famine and feast all the time and things are going to be up and down all the time.
25:58
And you’re going to be doing a big end of quarter push all the time because people aren’t managing their pipeline properly.
26:03
So I want to get that in there because it’s, it’s a, it really trips people up a lot because they think it just happens naturally and it doesn’t always somebody needs to teach someone in terms of working with sales OPS.
26:21
I think there needs to be a better understanding of what sales operations is.
26:24
I’m, I’ve, I’ve got a sales operations role model off my wall right now and I haven’t counted how many different things are on there.
26:33
There’s probably at least 30 as to what is involved in sales operations.
26:37
It’s a department.
26:38
And depending on the size of your business, then one person is managing all of those things.
26:43
So then it’s very, very tempting when you need someone to manage sales OPS.
26:46
You get someone who’s really good at the tech.
26:48
Why?
26:48
Because you just got in some new tech and you need to get somebody to manage it and connect to all the dots that you can trust.
26:54
Yeah.
26:56
But if they don’t know sales OPS, they won’t necessarily understand process, right?
27:01
And might not be able to build it in.
27:03
A lot of people can learn and it’s fantastic.
27:05
But I just spoke to somebody on Friday that said they were and it’s a large company.
27:10
For two years, they were looking for somebody to do sales OPS that didn’t just understand how to use sales force.
27:15
They need somebody who knew how to do the process.
27:17
And they couldn’t find anyone in a large company like 2 years.
27:21
Oh my goodness.
27:23
But yeah, it, it really, really matters.
27:25
You need somebody who understands sales.
27:27
They don’t have to have bidding sales, but it helps if they’ve done some sales.
27:32
It helps if they’ve managed a project before because there’s a lot of deliverables because you’re making change happen.
27:39
You there’s always something that’s changing.
27:41
There’s a lot of communication that happens between sales and the rest of the the business.
27:45
And sometimes the sales manager doesn’t have the time or the inclination to do that for very good reason.
27:51
Your sales upsperson.
27:53
It’s almost like sales is PR.
27:55
People don’t think of sales OPS like that.
27:57
No, they don’t.
27:59
It’s the first time I’ve heard that line and I’m going to steal that.
28:01
I’m going to use that.
28:03
Go for it because it’s so true.
28:06
You get the right person there.
28:07
I mean, again, I’m a, I’m a project manager or a program manager.
28:10
I’m talking to marketing.
28:12
I’m talking to operations and project management.
28:14
I’m talking to IT.
28:16
I’m talking to the leadership team.
28:17
I can be in the room when the sales manager is out at a meeting or on a plane somewhere and I know what’s going on, you know, But where I sit is about making sure we all work together because I don’t have a sales target.
28:31
I don’t carry a bag, right?
28:33
You know, you know, I’m bonus on this is when I’m working inside of a business, I’m I’ve got the same bonus as the rest of the business.
28:40
So I’m not interested in just one big sale that eats into our profits.
28:45
I want a business that can get profit.
28:47
So it needs to work all the way across the business.
28:50
Yeah.
28:51
And that’s the perspective I think I see missing a lot is that the, the, the focus is just narrowed on sales, but there’s a whole lot that happens once that deal’s closed.
29:01
And again, that’s what sales OPS can I think really drive success overall for the business.
29:07
Is, is, is is managing those connections and everything that has to happen around handoffs between sales and delivery.
29:16
Yeah, because it’s that relay race.
29:17
And like, who would have done that before?
29:19
The sales manager’s got to get involved in that.
29:21
Do you know how boring that is for a sales manager who’s really good at doing sales to get involved in those processes?
29:27
It’s so tedious.
29:29
And I don’t I don’t envy them.
29:30
It’s not their thing.
29:32
No, they just not effective use of their time.
29:35
Oh, they should be on selling.
29:37
Yeah.
29:38
But as long as, you know, sales manager can communicate to sales OPS, sales OPS can communicate to everybody else and manage that you need someone that can manage those projects.
29:48
It’s an operational function.
29:51
That’s why it’s there.
29:52
And it’s, it’s, you know, just getting somebody to sort out the data in the tech.
29:55
It’s not enough.
29:56
True sales operations is about sales operations.
30:00
It all comes together, you know, and that person needs to be trusted.
30:05
You can take that person and sort of grow them up into the role.
30:08
You can go out there and get training, but it, it’s something that needs to be taken seriously.
30:12
Otherwise we’re not utilizing that person.
30:15
The system that you bought nothing.
30:17
The sales manager is still going to be super, super busy.
30:19
So sales leaders out there, you want to be a little bit less busy.
30:23
You want somebody to take some stuff off your plate, get someone who knows what they’re doing, or you get somebody and you train them up, say train somebody who wants to know somebody who’s delivered projects and you can get them trained up.
30:34
But bringing somebody in and just saying, Oh yeah, no, just run the data and just figure it out.
30:38
They’re not going to know where to look.
30:40
No, no.
30:41
And their focus can be so limited.
30:43
They’re going to be spending all their time in CRM and that’s it.
30:47
Running reports, that’s it.
30:48
That’s all they’re doing.
30:49
They’re not helping drive the business forward and it’s a missed opportunity.
30:53
I think it’s a huge missed opportunity.
30:55
Huge.
30:56
Because then when they need help, who they’re going to call, they’re going to call the tech people for the CRM that they’re using and they’re going to get that person’s opinion who doesn’t really care or know anything about that person’s business.
31:08
It’s they just have to work with their tech.
31:12
Well, I see that all the time where, you know, we come in and people are like our Serum is really not helping us.
31:16
And it’s because there was implemented by a technology person that understands the technology really well, but they don’t have a clue how to connect it into the business.
31:25
Sales op can help.
31:27
Sales OPS can help you do the create that connection.
31:30
That’s where that’s how we do it.
31:33
That’s how we’re successful implementing CRM is we need to dial it into the business.
31:37
So it’s truly supporting that flow.
31:40
That relay race you talked about.
31:42
Yeah, it’s, it’s not a separate IT.
31:45
Technology is as much of a separate entity as sales is separate to the rest of the business.
31:52
Things need to intertwine.
31:53
If they don’t, then what’s the point of having it?
31:55
You, you, you’ve just got an expensive big piece of something to spend money on.
31:58
That’s it like it, it needs to work for you, otherwise it’s just a waste of time.
32:03
And that’s why you get people going.
32:04
Oh, CRM suck and we both know they don’t suck, right.
32:07
So, and that’s why I, I wanted to have you on the show to talk about this is because I see it so much that that disconnect, that lack of understanding of really that sales OPS is that thread that’s really is connecting all of this.
32:26
And when it’s done right, it’s connected it well and it’s way more than a threat.
32:30
It’s like it’s a pipeline it through the business, connecting everything as you’re saying, it’s connecting into marketing, it’s connecting into operations, it’s connecting everything.
32:42
That’s that connector.
32:44
And so often I see that they’re like, oh, we’re going to, you know, we’re going to get some for sales out.
32:48
We’re going to get some who’s really an expert in sales force or whatever serum they’re using.
32:52
That’s great.
32:52
That’s a good start.
32:53
But there’s so much more that you need from that individual.
32:57
Yeah, yeah.
32:58
And they used to be called CRM administrators, but now everybody’s called sales OPS or Rev OPS and just watching things change over time and thinking, oh, no, this has gone wrong.
33:08
This has gone wrong.
33:09
People are just renaming these roles.
33:11
And that’s a tech person.
33:12
That’s the tech administrator.
33:13
That’s cool, but that’s what they do.
33:15
They don’t know how to do this other stuff.
33:17
And it’s going to be really a really rough ride for them.
33:21
That’s right.
33:21
That’s right.
33:22
I mean, all you’re doing is getting additional IT support.
33:25
You’re not advancing the business.
33:29
You know, there’s there’s definitely time and place for having a specialist IT person that’s specifically the size of your business.
33:36
But you need that back in support because it’s again, in an operations department, people, the vast majority of people there know how to put things in order and run those things.
33:45
You know, there’s going to be a finance operations person, but Dang, that everybody in sales is very driven on this one thing, the numbers and that’s it.
33:55
So if you don’t have somebody there that connects them to the rest of the business, that’s where you end up.
34:03
The word perpetrating, you know what I mean?
34:05
That word continuing the myth that sales is king and every everybody else is just meh.
34:11
The backing dancers.
34:12
It’s like you need sales and you need delivery.
34:15
That’s right.
34:16
All of those things need to work.
34:17
If your finance team crumbles, how long is it going to be before you run out of money?
34:23
You know, you need both.
34:25
Yeah, I, I love that I talk about like, hey, sales, when you look at the overall customer relationship, that initial sale is such a small percentage if you’re doing it right, you know, because you want to have that customer for years, if not decades in.
34:42
I think that’s another area where sales OPS can really help cement that because they’re supporting that good transition into delivery that’s going to create that bond with the customer nice and smooth.
34:55
And it’s, it’s, it’s just so necessary.
34:58
Again, it’s, it’s the client journey.
34:59
And one of the things that’s been really eating at me a lot recently is the kind of business practices, and I do understand them.
35:07
It’s, it’s a, it’s a method, I suppose where the aim is to get as many people in as possible for new business obviously, and then effectively track them into working with you.
35:17
So we’re going to make it super difficult for you to leave and then not treat you really well, but it’s difficult for you to leave.
35:26
So you’ve got your recurring revenues.
35:27
It’s like, yes, that is an option.
35:31
Or like I said, to me, business is a sport, you know, do it well, Treat people well because you, you bring them in nicely, you treat them well.
35:40
They’re going to do your sales job for you.
35:42
Yes, they’re talking to everybody.
35:45
Just like, you know, go to these people because they they will see you, right.
35:48
Tell them you know me and that helps so much.
35:52
We know how expensive it is to bring in a new client.
35:55
Yeah, you know, you do so much to bring them in.
35:58
Why not create an incredible experience for them?
36:02
I see that a lot in the technology space where people literally get trapped by their technology decisions because they know it’s super expensive to implement technology.
36:12
You don’t want to keep repeating that every two or three years.
36:15
You know, you want, hey, I’m all in on this.
36:17
I want it to be a great experience.
36:19
I want it to work for my business.
36:21
I can tell you how many C like C level leaders are calling us going F whoever, I’m done with them because we went live and then all of a sudden they started treating us like crap.
36:34
Yeah.
36:35
Overnight.
36:36
Yeah.
36:36
And it it boggles my mind that I’m like, it’s just it there’s such a level of arrogance around that in short term thinking.
36:45
But hey, you know, as long as they’re in their numbers, they’re happy, right?
36:50
If they don’t spree up a year from now, three years from now, whatever, it’s not my problem.
36:55
It’s someone else’s problem.
36:56
But that’s their metric, not my metric.
36:59
But we know we we’re getting big changes with AI and everything, and that’s not going to cut it.
37:04
No, because there’ll be whole AI or predominantly AI businesses at some point that are happy to treat people like that.
37:11
So you’re paying for humans to treat people like that.
37:14
You’re not going to have a good profit margin.
37:15
So we’re going to have AI and then people that treat people with respect.
37:21
Yeah.
37:22
And I feel like that’s where we’re going.
37:23
So like, good luck to them.
37:25
They’re making money at the moment.
37:27
Yeah, yeah.
37:28
So if we’re going to sum things up for sales leaders when it comes to sales OPS, how would you sum up and and try to reframe for for sales leaders how they should be thinking about and leveraging sales OPS in their business as part of their team?
37:53
It’s thinking about if you as a sales leader are looking at everything that you’re doing because you don’t have any time.
37:59
I’ve never met a sales leader that had a bunch of time on their hands.
38:02
So what do you need help with the most or what do you need to stop happening one or the other?
38:07
Pain or pleasure is like, what annoying thing are you hearing over and over and over again?
38:13
Is it marketing aren’t giving us the materials?
38:15
Is it?
38:15
Is it delivery keep dropping the ball?
38:17
What is it?
38:18
Because a good chunk of that sales OPS can help you with and they’re not going to come in and just do one thing.
38:27
They’re going to help you with things that you didn’t even know you needed help with, like the whole pipeline coaching stuff like the, the, the creating short training courses to remind people where some something is in the CRM so that they actually have accurate forecasting.
38:43
All of those things that that you are annoyed to the back teeth of repeating over and over and over again.
38:47
Your sales OPS can support you on and help straighten out everyone so that everyone’s in line.
38:52
It’s like you, you’ve got your lead captain and you’ve got your your Lieutenant or Lieutenant, like your right hand person.
38:59
And that isn’t necessarily, if you’ve got an assistant, that’s not your assistant necessarily.
39:03
You need someone who knows this stuff, who’s a good general that can be a trusted advisor.
39:10
And I think this is one of the things that happens a lot when you get to leader stage and there’s not a lot of people you can speak to about things.
39:21
So, you know, if you can, you find someone that can be a trusted advisor, you’re going to need somebody to talk to because some of those days you feel like you want to hit someone because they’re not listening.
39:32
And you need someone who can listen to you to help you figure out how to lead the team, how to get through this particular bit.
39:39
That’s just what you need someone because sometimes, you know, it’s like in a business, sometimes you can’t go to the COR other people that on your level, you can’t necessarily go to them because, you know, if you’ve had, if the the partner has had bad history in the past, sometimes the other leaders are just waiting for sales to go down.
39:56
Yeah, I love that you said you need someone to help figure things out.
40:01
You know that it’s it, it can’t all fall on your shoulders.
40:04
You need someone that is really that, that who is that internal resource that you have that they they’ve got that broad perspective.
40:17
They’re like, you know what, I’ve got some ideas where we can go.
40:19
Look, let me go dive into some things and I’ll come back to you.
40:23
Because again, you, you’re like you said, who’s got time, right?
40:27
I don’t have time to dig.
40:28
And if I had time, it wouldn’t be a problem, right?
40:30
Exactly.
40:31
Yeah.
40:31
So you need someone that can go in, who is smart enough, that knows the business well enough, that’s got the tool set to go in and figure those things out and come back to and say here’s some things I think we can try.
40:43
What do you think?
40:43
And yeah, let’s talk about that.
40:45
Let’s let’s measure.
40:46
Let’s see what works.
40:49
You can’t do it all alone.
40:51
Yeah.
40:51
And it’s it’s sometimes it’s a lot.
40:53
It’s a lot of pressure.
40:54
And obviously there’s many more sales people than there is a sales leader.
40:58
So sometimes they can feel cornered and on their own.
41:01
And very few people want to admit that openly, obviously.
41:04
So having your sales OPS person there that is trusted, it makes all the difference.
41:12
Yes.
41:13
You know, it truly does.
41:15
Charlene, we’re at our time here in sales lead dog.
41:17
It’s, this is one of those again, conversations I could keep going on because there’s so much, I believe we’ve just scratched the surface.
41:23
We could have gone so much deeper in some areas because this is such a big topic.
41:27
But if so, if people want to reach out, connect with you, they want to learn more about you and sales OPS effect, what what’s the best way for them to do that?
41:37
I’d say LinkedIn, you can find me on there.
41:40
It’s Charlene Thompson spelt with AC for Charlene and an H and AP for Thompson.
41:44
I’m I’m there very regularly.
41:46
Or you can go to salesopseffect.com, but I’m on LinkedIn all the time and my inbox is open.
41:50
So you can just shoot me a message and say hi if you’d like.
41:52
That’s awesome.
41:53
So if you didn’t catch any of that, no worries.
41:55
We will have it in our show notes and you can check that out at impellercrm.com/ Sales Lead Dog, where you’ll get not only this episode of Sales Lead Dog, but all are close to 150 episodes now of Sales Lead Dog.
42:09
So be sure to check that out.
42:11
Reach out, connect with Charlene and subscribe to Sales Lead Dog so you get all our future episodes as well.
42:18
Charlene, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your perspective today.
42:22
I think this is really tremendous and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog pack.
42:27
Thank you so much.
42:28
Thank you for having me.
42:29
I really enjoyed this talk.
42:31
Terrific.
42:34
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42:41
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42:45
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42:53
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