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.
0:13 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 For today’s episode, my guest is Deeza Pratt.
0:32 Deeza is chief sales officer for Vetnique.
0:35 Deeza, welcome to Sales Lead Dog.
0:38 Thank you.
0:39 Glad to be here on a Friday afternoon.
0:41 Yeah, it’s a great way to wind up the week.
0:44 You know, these, recording these always gives me just a ton of energy.
0:48 I always come out of these really pumped up.
0:50 So I really like recording these late on Friday.
0:52 So a great way to go into the weekend.
0:56 Deeza, tell me a bit about Vetnique.
0:59 Yeah, so Vetnique is a a very fast growing, amazing pet Wellness brand.
1:04 We were founded by a veterinarian Doctor James Bacharan about 13 years ago who saw some need states in the vet industry that he wanted to fill, did an incredible job doing that and has grown the brand around solutions that we’re we’re finding in the pet Wellness area that we can solve for pet parents.
1:24 We are very unique in the pet Wellness space and that were that formulated.
1:29 So all of our all of our solutions are formulated by Doctor Bashran, who is still our CEO and we have a, a very large that following.
1:36 So a lot of that recommendations, which is important to consumers when they’re making decisions about pet Wellness products.
1:42 We are found in all of your major retailers.
1:45 So the obvious choices like Chewy and Amazon, but we’re also PetSmart, Petco, Pet Supplies Plus and Walmart and now just launching in Target along with some other retailers like Tractor Supply and Meijer and some other folks coming on board.
2:00 We also have a a very robust vet channel.
2:03 So we’ve got a direct sales team calling on, on vet veterinarians and helping them with solutions and some exclusive products that we sell directly into the vet channel as well.
2:11 That is amazing.
2:12 I mean, that is such a huge space because let’s face it, if you have a pet third part of your family and we want to take care of them.
2:22 We want to make sure that they are having a wonderful, wonderful life.
2:27 And like, unfortunately, I lost both of my dogs.
2:29 But while I had them, they truly were, I mean, they were if they were here now, they would both be underneath my desk at my feet right now.
2:38 Well, you, you may hear one of my two dogs, so you can see in the back, I have a new puppy and then I have a 14 year old senior dog.
2:45 You may hear them in the background, although they are locked in the other room, but they they may bark.
2:48 You might hear them in the background.
2:49 That’s all right.
2:50 That’s a fact of life.
2:51 Yeah.
2:52 So, Deezer, when you look back over your career, if you could boil it down, sum it up into just three things, what would the three things be that really have led to your success that you’ve achieved?
3:05 Yeah.
3:05 I mean, I think, you know, obviously when you’re in sales, it’s about results, right.
3:09 So you’ve got to promises made, promises kept, you’ve got it.
3:12 You’ve got to deliver on the results that your company is asking, is asking from you.
3:16 So it’s about knowing your numbers, breaking it down into little chunks so that you can, you can achieve those numbers, understand what’s necessary to make those numbers.
3:25 And obviously that’s, that’s super important.
3:27 I’ve also been really fortunate, but I think maybe also some of it has been, you know, through really great networking and and mentors to find companies that I flourished in because of the leadership of those companies, the culture of those companies where I felt like I was doing something really important in the categories that I worked in and felt, you know, that my career prospered because I felt like I was doing something important for that category.
3:54 And then I, I think the third thing is, you know, having really, really strong mentors, people that early on believed in me and put me and thrust me into jobs that sometimes I probably wasn’t ready to do, but stood by me and help me be successful in them.
4:09 And, and that is something that, you know, I do now often with the people on my team as well.
4:15 Yeah.
4:15 It’s never a solo effort.
4:17 You have to have help in this journey.
4:19 Yes, exactly.
4:21 Yeah, Yeah.
4:23 Did you always want to be in sales or did you have different plans when you were starting your career?
4:28 Well, I mean, my first job out of school, I was recruited at out of college by Procter and Gamble in a sales role.
4:34 I don’t know that if I, if you’d asked me when I was in college if I was going to be in a sales role, I would have said that.
4:38 But that’s where I ended up.
4:40 And P&G, you know, they have the best sales training in the world.
4:43 So, you know, that became my foundation that stuck with me in terms of my discipline and my DNA for the rest of my career.
4:50 And I enjoyed it.
4:52 I enjoyed really, you know, helping companies achieve their goals and being a part of a team that that reached those goals together.
5:00 So it it sort of just happened, but it was something that I think fit with my personality really well.
5:06 Yeah, Yeah.
5:10 Was it an easy step or transition into this crew for you when you were getting started in sales?
5:16 Not at all.
5:18 No, I would say no.
5:19 I, I mean, I think anybody that tells you it is really easy is, is you know, is very, very unique.
5:26 It’s it’s, it’s a hard Rd., especially when you’re first starting because you’re kind of having to learn by trial, trial by fire, you having to get that build up, that resiliency and sort of build up, you know, all of the toolkit that you need to really be successful long term.
5:39 So no, it wasn’t, it wasn’t really easy and it’s not easy today.
5:43 It’s it’s not an easy, easy job, but it is a job that brings me a lot of joy and satisfaction for sure.
5:50 Yeah.
5:51 What were some of the key lessons learned from those early days that you still leverage today in your role as chief sales officer?
5:58 Yeah.
5:58 I mean, I think I, I brought up the word resiliency.
6:01 It’s like, you know, understanding that the rejection is not a final answer.
6:05 It’s it’s something that you kind of just have to get through and wait, wait through.
6:10 But also like the power of having very strong relationship with your buyers and not being afraid to get on a personal level with them.
6:18 You may lose today, but you know, if if you have a strong relationship and you’re bringing value to that relationship and you’re connecting with them on a personal level, you can’t have success down the road.
6:31 So I think it’s like not giving up when it would be very easy to kind of walk away.
6:35 That was that was one thing.
6:37 The other was really knowing my numbers.
6:39 That was a hard lesson for me to learn.
6:41 But you know, it’s, it’s, you know, in terms of my discipline every day, the very first thing I do every day is open up the numbers from the day before and dissect them for every single customer that we have, every PO that came in.
6:52 I want to know and I want my team to know every single day where we stand against our goals.
6:57 If we’re over, why are we over?
6:58 If we’re under, why are we under?
7:00 If we’re going to miss, how are we going to make it up somewhere else?
7:03 And really kind of understanding those numbers every single day.
7:06 That’s you.
7:06 You can’t manage what you’re not measuring.
7:08 So for me, that’s key.
7:10 Sounds like a a great deal of hyper focus on the numbers, yes.
7:16 And also sort of understanding like all of the things that go into getting those numbers and getting to where you need to go and then applying the soft skills to making sure that you can, can achieve those.
7:27 Yeah.
7:28 What’s key, You know, in my world when we, when we implement CRM it, it’s really, I always talk about like what are your key numbers?
7:34 There’s always a group of core numbers that if you’re looking at those every day, you know the health of your business and your technology has to align and support that.
7:45 Hey, we’re taking a quick break to thank you for listening to and supporting the Sales Lead Dog podcast.
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9:08 OK, let’s get back to this episode of the Sales Lead Dog podcast.
9:13 What advice do you have for a sales leader that day?
9:16 That’s not my world.
9:17 I I want that, I want to get there, but how do I do it?
9:21 What advice do you have that for that person?
9:24 Well, I mean, what I have found, especially with, you know, I’ve, I’ve had the privilege of working for some more startup companies, you know, high growth companies that became very, very successful.
9:34 And in these early years, often times these companies don’t have the reporting tools available to them to give you the kind of data that you need.
9:41 So you really sometimes have to take a step back and help the organization understand why you need certain reports, why you need certain data, because they may not understand, like why do you need to know exactly what the P OS were the day before by customer?
9:55 And so really kind of working through that architecture with your organization, convincing them to get it and then getting those reports because it it often time isn’t, it isn’t even there.
10:06 That foundation isn’t even there.
10:07 When you come in as a sales leader and you’re trying to help the business move forward.
10:12 Did you envision yourself in a role of a sales leader in those?
10:17 You know, once you got your feet under you and you’re doing well in sales, was that a career path that was part of your plan?
10:25 No, I would say no, definitely not.
10:28 I think you know, I, I’ve been in CPG most of my career.
10:31 I was more on the human supplement side than on the pet side.
10:34 And I made that change about 13 years ago.
10:36 It’s really similar, actually very interesting as you were mentioning earlier, like you know, your, your, your pets or your family members and the same kind of things apply for, for both channels.
10:47 But no, I, I started early in sales and then I went more into the sales operations side.
10:52 So I was more like sort of the back office kind of getting the foundations built for the company.
10:57 And then, you know, sort of got pushed by my mentors into more of a sales leadership role.
11:02 Didn’t, didn’t see that for myself.
11:05 But once I kind of got into that path, knew that I was good at it and, and just kind of kept at it.
11:11 And then I, you know, had the privilege of being able to pick some companies that I knew I would flourish in and that I would really be able to help in and bring people along that journey that I was able to help with their careers as well.
11:22 Yeah.
11:22 What kind of training did you get at PNG for Sales?
11:26 Was that really good supportive training?
11:29 It was incredible.
11:29 I mean, it was, you know, a lot of practicing, practicing, practicing.
11:34 So, you know, dissecting your products, falling in love with your products, knowing all of the features and benefits, really being able to articulate those in a clear, concise, easy way so that you can transfer that enthusiasm and that excitement to the buyer.
11:47 Merchandising expertise, Being able to stand in an aisle and look at a shelf in a retail store and understand where you’re going wrong, why your competitors are beating you.
11:57 You know, what do you need to do to change sort of some, some of the dynamics that are happening in terms of your numbers, why those dynamics are happening?
12:05 That’s all like a very strict discipline that PNG instills.
12:09 And then later on, believe it or not, I worked for PNG twice because they came in and bought one of the companies that I was working for, a human supplement company.
12:15 And I worked, yeah and I worked for them for three years after that.
12:19 And at that, at that point my career was, I was a vice president at that time.
12:22 So my career was very different than an entry level salesperson.
12:25 And again, P&G, they put me on the top customer team.
12:29 What I’ve learned from them at at P&G at that point was the value of building these like really strong value added consulting relationship with your buyer where you’re bringing something to the table to them to help them lift their overall category.
12:44 So they’re really looking forward to the conversations with you because you’re bringing them insights and information that they need to do their job better, which is very different than just going in and pitching, you know, a box of Cascade or Tide to A to a grocery store manager.
12:57 Oh yeah, no, I can totally relate to that.
12:59 I mean, it took me a while to figure that out selling what I sell.
13:03 But people want solutions to their problems.
13:07 You know, if you, if you’re able to deliver that you’re in a whole nother category now.
13:11 You know that relationship you’re, you’re in that trusted advisor role, that consultative role that it’s a lot easier to sell.
13:18 Still not easy, but it’s a lot easier to sell.
13:21 Then I’m just trying to, you know, get your way past the gatekeepers and all the traditional stuff.
13:28 Yes, exactly, yeah.
13:31 So what role did mentorship play for you and your development when your time at P&P and GI mean just huge?
13:40 I think, you know, I look back on, you know, a handful of five or six different leaders I had right from the very beginning that were very patient with me, probably more patient than I deserved at different times.
13:54 And then, you know, kind of put me in roles that I, I sometimes wasn’t fully qualified for, to be honest, you know, and I remember even a couple of times saying to those leaders, I don’t, I don’t know if I can do this job.
14:05 I, you know, I, I don’t know if I have the skill set.
14:08 And them saying to me that we’re going to be fine.
14:11 I’m going to make sure that you succeed.
14:12 I’m going to stay with you and make sure that you have everything that you need to be successful and being patient with me as I kind of worked through that.
14:18 So, you know, from, from the standpoint of like giving me those opportunities.
14:24 Yeah, mentors were everything.
14:25 And then on the other side, the soft skills of, you know, really kind of coaching me and teaching me about how to get along in this world and how to get along interdepartmentally and how to how to speak to people in the in the right way to be able to to influence them in a positive way, influence organizations in a positive way.
14:48 Just absolutely incredible mentors I’ve had.
14:51 Just incredible.
14:52 Yeah.
14:54 And how is that, you know, the impact that they’ve had on you, how is that formulated or, or impacting your role as a sales leader?
15:04 Yeah, I mean, I think at this point in my career, honestly, I’ve I’ve more than exceeded my goals.
15:10 You know, I’ve reached kind of the pinnacle of what everything I would have ever expected career wise.
15:16 And so my joy 100% comes from being able to do the same thing for other folks that are kind of up and coming and help them reach their goals.
15:25 So a big part of my conversation with people that work on my team is where do you want to be?
15:29 How am I going to help you get there?
15:32 And, and my joy comes from them growing personally and professionally from getting feedback, from putting them in opportunities where they can grow and move up and move up the ladder, if you will.
15:44 So seeing folks that came in working for me at different companies that are vice presidents now out in, in wonderful companies, it’s that’s where I get my joy and my satisfaction and I will continue to going forward.
15:57 What are you looking for as you build your sales teams?
16:01 Oh, gosh.
16:02 Well, so I mean, I think first of all, you know, they have to have, they have to have a track record of successful sales.
16:08 They have to prove proven that they can, they can get a number, be accountable for a number and deliver a number.
16:15 The last couple companies, especially I’ve worked for, culture is so important to who we are and particularly Vetnique.
16:21 First and foremost, they have to be a culture fit.
16:23 So we are, we’re we’re kind of really testing for that in our interview process to make sure because we’re such a small lean team, you know, one kind of bad apple can kind of ruin the whole thing.
16:34 We need to make sure that we’ve got people on the team that everybody’s going to enjoy working with, like working with.
16:40 And, and so culture fit is, is super important.
16:44 And then I look for, you know, a certain kind of entrepreneurial attitude.
16:49 I think, you know, especially when you’re working with high growth companies, people have to be comfortable with the ambiguity.
16:54 They’ve got to be comfortable with the grade.
16:56 Everything’s not black and white.
16:57 There’s not a always a a formal training program for them.
17:01 So they have to be able to flex and grow with an organization.
17:04 There’s a certain amount of just making it up as you go along and that that some people are really comfortable with and other people are just not comfortable with.
17:11 So finding people that are going to fit into that kind of a model.
17:14 Yeah.
17:14 Yeah.
17:18 What how do you handle their or leverage vulnerability as a sales leader?
17:24 You know, we’ve all had failures.
17:26 We’re not.
17:26 No one’s batting 1000 in sales.
17:29 How do you leverage those experiences in your role?
17:33 Yeah, I do it a lot.
17:34 I mean, I think for, for first of all, I have in one of my personal growth journeys has been finding a network of peers and other people in the industry that I trust that I can call, whether it be at, at Vetnique where I can call who and say to them, you know, I’m not sure I was my best self in that situation.
17:55 Can you, can you tell me what you think I could have done differently?
17:58 And being willing to not be perfect and get feedback from people and, or having peers in other channels to say, you know, I’ve really run up against a wall here.
18:08 Here’s my situation.
18:10 Can you help me?
18:11 Have you ever run across this and, and how would you handle this?
18:15 There is a great relief in not having to be perfect and to be able to be vulnerable.
18:20 And then also letting your folks know that that work on your team to say, you know, I’m not exactly sure how to handle this situation.
18:28 Here’s what I’m thinking.
18:29 What do you think?
18:30 Asking their advice as well and also leveraging with them.
18:34 You know, I don’t think I handled this perfectly.
18:36 I think I should have done this instead.
18:38 What do you think?
18:39 There’s just, like I said, a great relief in not having to be perfect all the time and, and showing your humanity.
18:46 Yeah, I think it it, it’s a it’s an incredible way to develop connections with your team as well.
18:54 You know, like, look, we’re all people, we’re all human.
18:56 We all fall on her face.
18:58 I’m going to do it.
18:58 I expect you to do it.
19:00 But the key is we’re going to learn from this.
19:03 How do you create those learning opportunities?
19:06 Yeah, Well, I, you know, when you were just saying that I was thinking of, I did have a mentor at one point that said to me, the rate that we’re going right now, if you’re not making mistakes, 20% of the time you’re actually going too slow.
19:16 So go ahead and make mistakes.
19:17 I’ve got your back on it.
19:18 And that is something that I also try to model.
19:22 You know, I’m, we’re asking a lot of people and you’re going to make mistakes.
19:25 I’m going to make mistakes.
19:26 And just knowing that having people’s back and getting, like you said, picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and just keep moving forward.
19:34 I think, you know, as a leader, it’s really important to not focus on the mistakes, but really kind of focus on the results and kind of what’s next.
19:43 You know, there’s been, I can think of a million different examples in the last couple of years where things didn’t go exactly as we wanted it to.
19:50 And if you focus too much on why it didn’t happen the way you thought it was going to, you’re just wasting a lot of time.
19:55 Instead, focus on, OK, where do we want to go next and what do we need to do to get there?
19:59 Yeah.
19:59 Yeah.
20:01 I really think that’s it.
20:03 You know, you nailed it, summed it up really well.
20:06 It it’s like, let’s come together as a team, let’s figure this out and let’s move forward.
20:10 Exactly.
20:11 Yeah.
20:12 Yeah.
20:13 What do you, what advice do you have for someone who’s in the sales role right now that’s maybe considering a leadership role?
20:20 Yeah.
20:21 I mean, I think take it upon yourself to do a lot of personal development, self-awareness as a leader is no matter if it’s a sales, leadership, operations leader, whatever it is, being a self aware person and understanding kind of where your limitations are, where the areas are that you have to grow and being willing to work on them.
20:40 I do a lot of reading, I practice a lot of different techniques personally being willing to do that self growth, not expecting your organization to really kind of help you with all of it is, is, is really, really important.
20:53 Keeping up with technology is another one.
20:55 I mean, I, you know, unfortunately I see a lot of sales folks that have been in their careers for a long time that are wondering why they didn’t, you know, get promoted into management roles, but they can’t do a spreadsheet, they can’t manage a budget, they can’t put a PowerPoint together.
21:09 So we, we need to be agile.
21:10 We’ve got to keep up with technology, all of us.
21:13 And, and, and again, not always expecting your organization to do that for you.
21:17 If you’ve got to go take a class somewhere to do that or, you know, get on on a platform online to learn how to do that, We’ve, we’ve all got to stay current.
21:26 And then as I said before, it’s, it’s knowing your numbers, really, really kind of understanding and knowing, knowing your numbers and being able to articulate that instills a lot of confidence in a leadership organization that you’re going to be able to handle more responsibility because you, you know what you’re talking about.
21:42 Yeah.
21:43 How do you handle accountability within your team?
21:47 So we have, we, we have very clear goals.
21:50 So it’s, it’s, we have scorecards.
21:52 We have very clear goals.
21:54 Betnique operates under a system called EOS.
21:56 I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that.
21:58 OK.
21:59 Yeah.
21:59 So it’s, this is the third company I’ve worked EOS through.
22:03 I think it’s a game changer for organizations, honestly.
22:05 It makes it very clear for the entire organization what we’re all working on, what our goals are.
22:11 It keeps you accountable every single week towards your scorecard and towards your individual rocks that you’re working on.
22:18 And that is just foundational for us as an organization.
22:21 Yeah.
22:23 Oh, yeah.
22:23 If you don’t know what EOS is, it’s an entrepreneurial operating system.
22:28 And it really is a fundamental way.
22:30 It’s a framework of, you know, I think people are like, hey, we need to achieve this goal, All right, let’s everybody go do it.
22:38 It’s not how it works.
22:39 You know, it’s like you have to have a plan.
22:41 You have to figure out how I’m going to get from from A-Z knowing that there’s 24 other letters in the way that we have to navigate, correct?
22:51 And then everybody has to be on the same page.
22:52 So I mean, one of the beauties of EOS is that it cascades down strategy from the executive team, which I’m on, you know, in into each different department.
23:02 My directors have their own L 10s with their their folks.
23:05 So messaging is really, really clear and consistent.
23:09 And then in terms of accountabilities for numbers, you know, we all have goals.
23:13 I think it’s about creating the right kind of pay plan too, especially in sales, right?
23:17 So creating a compensation plan that disproportionately rewards your top performers and makes it important for, for individuals to make their goals to, to make money, you know, at the level that they’re hoping to, to make it at.
23:32 So being able to write a, a, a really good compensation plan is also important.
23:39 So when you go into a new role, new company, what are the 1st 90 days look like for you?
23:45 Yeah.
23:46 So I mean, it’s first of all falling in love with the products, deeply falling in love with them.
23:50 So really kind of understanding everything there is to know about those products.
23:54 So I can speak passionately and enthusiastically about them when I’m meeting with with my buyers and knowing those number those, those those products inside and out understanding the numbers, where are we succeeding?
24:07 Where are we not succeeding?
24:08 What are where are the opportunities and creating a plan around that.
24:12 And then also sort of understanding, you know, what my leadership team are our owners are expecting for us in the next year or two in terms of numbers and building the plan to to get there foundationally, which retailers are going to get us those numbers, how we’re going to tackle those accounts, What’s going to be our strategy with them?
24:31 What are we going to sell to them, All of those things.
24:34 Forecasting is incredibly difficult, especially when you’re relying ultimately on other people to sell your product.
24:43 How do you manage that in your world?
24:45 You know, because we have a lot of customers in that situation where, you know, I, I’m not directly selling the product, I’m selling the product to the sellers of the product.
24:55 How that it’s maybe a very different world for some of our listeners.
24:58 How can you explain how you manage that?
25:00 Yeah, so I think what you’re talking about, you’re talking about like if you’re working in a distributor model.
25:04 Yeah, exactly.
25:05 The distributor model, yeah, Yeah.
25:07 So we’ve got that.
25:08 We’ve got, we’ve got a few distributors on the retail side, but we do that is our model on the vet channel side for sure.
25:13 And it is more challenging, right, because we’re depending on that Channel to act as our feet on the street, if you will.
25:19 So you know, we’re recognizing revenue when we ship to the distributors, but that product has to sell through.
25:24 So we create programs to incentivize those distributors to help us sell into our channel.
25:31 In this case, it’s the vet clinics.
25:33 We do a lot of training with those distributor representatives to make sure that they are that were foremost on their mind when they’re going in and having those conversations with the vets.
25:43 And then we do a lot of work with the vets themselves so that we’re we’re creating pull through.
25:48 So those vets are asking for our products from the distributor reps.
25:51 Yeah.
25:51 Bottom line, that’s what I found too.
25:53 It’s all about education and creating that awareness and that that hunger for your products.
25:58 You know this, that pull through.
26:00 You know that you got to work both sides.
26:03 Yes, absolutely.
26:05 What’s the toughest thing about your job?
26:10 You know, it’s not the numbers, believe it or not.
26:11 I mean that can create stress, of course, if you’re if you’re, if you’re missing a goal, but we usually have enough contingency plans.
26:18 We can make it up somewhere else if we have to, fortunately, and we have great products, we’re able to kind of figure things out and we’ve got great growth and all of those kinds of things.
26:28 The, the, the part that’s most difficult, I think is, you know what, especially when you’re with a high growth company is, is kind of getting though I, I call it the yellow brick road like so I can, in my mind, I can sort of see that yellow brick road to get from here to there what we have to do.
26:44 But it’s bringing everybody along that journey with you and building those foundational things.
26:49 And then you know, the stress sometimes that a really successful sales organization can create on different departments in the company.
26:57 So it’s all well and good to go in and sell Walmart 12 skews, which we have now at Walmart, which is absolutely incredible, right.
27:03 But the the work that that puts on other departments in the company like our marketing department, our creative department, our operations department, our fulfillment department, our finance department, and all of those kinds of things have to be thought through.
27:15 And so your job really is, is not just selling, it’s also kind of working through that with a company and helping get get plans in place and the right people in place to support the business.
27:25 Oh, yeah, I love how you sum that up because it’s it’s it, it’s not just sales that needs to be involved in selling.
27:37 You know, it’s often times it’s the entire organization because as you say, you guys hit a home run, someone else has to deliver.
27:44 They’re responsible now for delivering that home run.
27:47 And you may have just made their life like, Oh my God, how the heck are we going to possibly do this?
27:52 For sure?
27:53 Exactly.
27:54 So it’s like you don’t you don’t want to bankrupt the company out of your success.
27:58 You know, it’s going to take a A-Team effort, right?
28:01 Yeah.
28:01 So that’s the hardest part, but also the most fun part, right?
28:04 Because when it works and everybody feels feels accountable and everybody feels the joy of having a huge success like we have right now with some of our retailers.
28:13 That that is that.
28:14 That’s also the fun part, but it is also the harder part.
28:17 Oh, yeah.
28:18 How do you build those relationships and that trust throughout your organization?
28:22 Because I do think that’s really key to to really being successful as a leader.
28:26 Again, you need to have those relationships, those, those people that you know, they’ve got their back and you want them to know you’ve got theirs.
28:34 Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s where leadership comes in.
28:38 Really a really great CEO and executive team that are partnering together.
28:42 That’s where EOS comes in.
28:45 So we’re solving problems as a team at every level in the organization and we’re identifying and bubbling up if there is conflict or things that we have to kind of work through.
28:55 And then, and that’s where Culturefit comes in.
28:58 So we have core values as an organization that are really important to us.
29:01 We don’t fool around with it.
29:02 We’re really serious about hiring people that we think will align to those core values.
29:07 And we hold ourselves and everybody accountable for achieving those core values as a, as a company.
29:12 No, I, I am such a big believer in that, that it completely transformed how I hired when I started hiring for core values.
29:21 You know, it just, it’s a fundamental shift that I, you know, if you’re not sure what we’re talking about, do some research on it ’cause it really, it’s a game changer.
29:31 Agreed.
29:33 Shifting topics here a little bit.
29:35 CRM, do you love it or do you hate it?
29:38 Oh, my goodness.
29:40 Can I answer both?
29:41 I mean, a lot of people do.
29:43 Yeah, both hate relationship, right.
29:46 I think it has its place.
29:48 So again, I’ll, I can just talk about our individual experience at Vetnique right now.
29:53 So we have a retail channel which is a key account headquarters model.
29:57 It’s not a huge group of people that we’re working with, right.
30:00 So CRM is total overkill for a situation like that.
30:04 We we’re managing it ourselves.
30:05 We don’t, we don’t need to be keeping track of things in a formal tool.
30:10 On the vet side, it’s completely different.
30:12 There are thousands, 10s of thousands of vet clinics, right?
30:15 And we are dependent on distributors.
30:17 We’re we need to keep track of who we’re talking to on the vet side, what’s happening with those vets, what’s you know who we’ve had conversations with, who we’ve sent samples to, who we’ve done training for.
30:29 There’s no way to keep up with that if you don’t have ACRM tool.
30:32 So, but it’s garbage in garbage out.
30:34 So it also means that you have to have the right support folks in your organization to manage that properly.
30:42 And when it works, it’s beautiful because you can get incredible reporting out of it and, and productivity and those kinds of things.
30:49 Yeah, it’s really about understanding your why, you know, what is the purpose?
30:53 What are we trying to get out of this tool?
30:55 You know, start with the end in mind and work backwards from there.
31:00 And it can be an incredible, incredible platform.
31:03 You know, some of the advice I have for people like you is populate your universe of who you’re trying to sell to make sure they’re in CRM.
31:11 So you’ve got that visibility.
31:13 And as you said, you know who we’ve talked to who we haven’t, you know, you can, you can start creating plans and some focus, have some insight into what’s going on.
31:21 The people that we’re giving this education to, they’re performing at this level.
31:25 The people that maybe got a different type of training, they’re performing at a different level.
31:28 Why?
31:29 You know, it’s all about being able to ask questions and figure out those answers.
31:34 But as you said, it’s a great tool.
31:37 How can CRM in your opinion be can be used the wrong way?
31:41 Yeah.
31:42 I mean, I, I think back when CRM was kind of first starting earlier in my career, we had a, a large fields sales force who weren’t really very technically, not only were they not really technically sophisticated, I’ll say, but they were also, they also were working like 12 hour days.
32:00 They were, they were covering large territories in their car getting back to a hotel at 8:00 at night.
32:05 And it was not, you know, and they had to input it into this kind of clunky handheld device that that just wasn’t super helpful.
32:14 And so there was a lot of resentment and resistance to putting in that information.
32:18 So I think that’s where it can, it cannot work really well.
32:21 I think, you know, if you’re going to use ACRM tool, you have to make sure it’s going to work for your organization, for the folks that are going to be using it, that you make it as easy as possible for them to want to participate in putting great and valuable information into that.
32:35 And then, yeah, you’ve got to use the data.
32:37 Once you get once you get that data, you’ve got to have somebody that can analyze that data and, and help you understand what you’re looking at.
32:42 Yeah, it is.
32:44 It’s asking the question, is CRM enabling us or it is, is it holding us back in some way?
32:50 And it’s always some areas it’s enabling others it’s not.
32:54 It’s not always just one answer, but you need to ask those questions.
32:59 And if it’s not and truly enabling your people, you have to figure out why because then you like you’re saying it’s just going to build up resistance.
33:07 You get garbage in, garbage out.
33:08 People are going to do the minimal they have to do to stay in compliance, but it’s not helping the organization.
33:15 It’s not moving things forward.
33:16 I I see that all the time.
33:19 What advice do you have for sales leaders and how they can leverage CRM beyond the usual stuff?
33:26 Is there any special ways you’d like to leverage CRM to help you in your role?
33:31 Yeah, I mean, I think I’m, I’m a big believer in looking at analytics.
33:36 So my first hire at Vetnique was, is, is this brilliant woman that has come with me a couple of times for different companies who, who really gets data.
33:46 And she’s kind of our secret weapon, right, if you will.
33:49 And having a person like that on your team that can help you analyze that data and, and get great, really great insights out of it and recommend follow up actions is, is, is key.
34:00 So I think getting somebody that you know, can help you analyze and then using, using that data properly to make fact based business decisions is, is key.
34:11 Oh no, it really is.
34:11 And those people you get people like that, hang on to them, you know, ’cause they’re rare, unfortunately.
34:16 You wish they were more common.
34:18 I know, you know, find yours and then hold on to them.
34:21 Exactly.
34:22 Agree, Deezer, we’re coming up on our time here on sales lead dog.
34:26 I really appreciate you coming on the show.
34:28 If people want to reach out, connect with you, if they want to learn more about Vetnique, what’s the best way for them to do that so they can learn about Vetnique on vetnique.com.
34:38 So just as it’s spelled VETNIQU e.com and they can get a hold of me through LinkedIn.
34:45 So Disa Pratt and you can find me on LinkedIn.
34:47 I would love to connect with you and network and find out more about your businesses and, and get together and and talk.
34:53 If we can help each other, that’s awesome.
34:56 If you didn’t catch that, don’t worry about it.
34:58 You can get it in our show notes at impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog where you will find not only this episode, but our all of our 150 plus episodes of sales Lead dog.
35:10 So be sure to check that out.
35:12 Be sure to subscribe so you get all our future episodes.
35:15 We greatly appreciate that.
35:17 Deezer, thank you so much for coming on Sales Lead Dog and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog pack.
35:23 My honor.
35:24 Thank you guys.
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