0:01
Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith.
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Talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack.
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Listen to find out how the best of the best achieved success with their team and CRM technology.
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And remember, unless you were the lead dog, the view never changes.
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Welcome to sales lead dog.
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My guest for today’s episode is Jason Reitner.
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Jason is the CRO chief revenue officer for Stronghold Data.
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Jason, welcome to Sales lead dog.
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Thank you so much.
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It’s a pleasure to be here.
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I’m excited to have you on the show.
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Jason.
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Jason, tell me a bit about Stronghold Data.
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So Stronghold Data we’re a managed, excuse me, managed service provider based out of Joplin, MO.
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We had our, our, you know, we started in 1990 with James Richards, who and his uncle started and you know, we’re, we’re over now 30 years in the IT space and it’s evolved quite a much, quite a bit, you know, over over those 30 years.
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Plus, in December of 2020, we actually had the opportunity and the honor to join new Charter Technologies through an equity partnership.
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And so now we’re actually able to deliver services on a more national scale.
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We have over, you know, 25 different operating companies, we’re in over 40 different cities over, you know, 1000 different employees and we’re continuing to grow.
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So it’s a very exciting time for me Stronghold Data and and then my partners that I have across North America here.
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That’s pretty wild and 30 years in this business, that’s a lot.
1:54
That’s I imagine you guys have quite a story, a bunch of stories to tell.
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What do you see right now is the big thing that you guys are seeing in the industry?
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Like what are your customers coming to you for help for?
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What’s the big one right now?
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Right now for us, it’s more on the automation, taking advantage of artificial intelligence, really trying to wrap their heads around it and how it can impact their their businesses.
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And that’s what’s been really exciting here for me over the last year and a half, two years is within the new charter family.
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We have something called the Blue sky session and it’s more of like a business consulting conversation that we have and the excitement that it generates when we’re talking to, you know, medium sized businesses, even down to small businesses.
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It’s just great to see how technology can continue to help improve their their organization.
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You know, another on the flip side of that coin, we have the compliance, the governance, the cybersecurity, you know, all of those things that are just necessary to continue to secure their, their well-being and, you know, their investment in their business.
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So that’s typically, you know, the two big areas right now that I’m seeing.
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Chris.
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That’s pretty exciting.
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Jason, when you look back over your career, I always feel there’s some common themes, some common threads that really drive success.
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If you had to boil it down to three things for you that have really contributed and LED to your success, what would those three things be?
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Well, Chris, you’re going to have to help me count because I will.
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I’ll keep track.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, keep track.
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You know, I mean it for me, you know, I think it my my set my sales journey when I’m thinking of a career started long before I even knew what the word career meant.
3:45
And I started in sales and this is going to age me, Chris.
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When after school I would go over to some friends house and they actually had a newspaper delivery business.
3:59
You know, this is long before the digital copies and we would deliver afternoon papers in the city I was in at the time.
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And the newspaper would occasionally run the subscription.
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You know, they would try to boost their subscription.
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And so they would have us go out and knock door to door on, on selling subscriptions and the challenge, the, you know, just how fun it was to be in competition with my friends.
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And like, you know, the reward, there were some rewards in that.
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So, you know, early on it, it just was like fun, you know, and I enjoyed it and I actually thrived at it even at that, that young age.
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So historically, if you want to put that down as #1 Chris, you know, that’s something, you know, my humble beginnings, if you will, in getting into sales.
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You know, it’s #2 I think over my career, what I’ve found is the ability to really solve problems.
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You know, and that’s truly what sales is and has come to mean for me is I’m a problem solver.
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I mean, you know, we always hear that infamous, you know, tell me about your pain.
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Tell me what keeps you up at night.
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But it goes even deeper than that for me because typically, you know, when you start getting into those types of conversations, you’re finding out that it, you know, there’s a lot more to it.
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And then, you know, obviously the the third thing that again, kind of like how it began with me is just winning.
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You know, I really, I’m very competitive at heart.
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And, you know, I want to help not only Stronghold, but also new Charter become a leader in our industry and grow that that that business not only on behalf of, but with all of the others that help lead to my success.
5:43
Yeah, that’s awesome.
5:44
I love that.
5:45
Hey, we’re taking a quick break to thank you for listening to and supporting the Sales Lead Dog podcast.
5:52
I want to take a moment and tell you about my book.
5:54
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OK, let’s get back to this episode, episode of the Sales Lead Dog podcast.
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So you start out sales newspaper subscriptions.
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What did that lead you into?
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I mean, what was your first sales job as an adult and how did that come to be?
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Well, I mean, even when I was in, in college, there were some jobs that I, I held, you know, part time as I was going to college.
7:33
And they, they had a lot of that, you know, suggestive sales, you know, hey, upsell this here and there more on the retail side.
7:40
So I did a little bit of that.
7:43
At one point I was even selling vacuum cleaners, you know, and they would set the appointments and stuff.
7:48
So you know, ever since then sales was in my blood, but early in my career I was in the financial space and you know, we were doing a lot of going out meeting with you know, clients how we can we continue to expand that portfolio that the financial institution had with them.
8:06
And so it just seems like sales or customer service or some component within all of my jobs have had had that common thread even leading to my career in, in technology sales.
8:21
No, what’s your favorite part of those early days, your favorite memory or memories about those early days?
8:28
And so, and those, those early days was again, just the relationships that I was making and building and the network that I, you know, had created and was a part of.
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And just the, the networking I think is, is big to me and how you can continue to add value to that network, whether you know, that’s a you, you’re getting compensation from them or even just, you know, adding back.
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You know, if I served on, you know, like the Chamber of Commerce, I didn’t, you know, serve on those kinds of committees.
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I was in other philanthropic groups that we were always trying to, to go down that route.
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And, and my career in sales or customer service gave me that opportunity to participate in those kinds of things.
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Yeah.
9:13
When you think back again, those those your that maybe first ten years in sales or, you know, whatever time frame you want to put on that those early days, what part of selling came naturally to you and what parts were foreign or you that you really had to work at and build those muscles to be successful at?
9:33
Typically what has always came, you know, natural to me, and that’s just the ability.
9:38
You know, in sales.
9:38
We you might have some hunters and you have some farmers.
9:41
There’s a lot of different analogies in that realm.
9:44
I always felt more on that hunting side.
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And so I was always really good about, you know, engaging folks in conversations, starting those conversations, you know, really being maybe that pioneer out there, if you will.
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So that, that was the part that always came really easy to me.
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The, the part that I struggle with, and I got to continue to do that even today in my career, is that documentation side, you know, going in and you know, hey, did you fill out this document or did you do this to, to complete the sale, stuff like that.
10:16
So that, that is 1 area that I, I struggle with even to today to really, you know, push myself to make sure I’m, I guess dotting the IS crossing the T’s kind of thing.
10:26
So a lot of people I think struggle with that.
10:28
What is that?
10:29
What do you think?
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Or where do you think that comes from?
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And you personally, that’s just not I, I, I just don’t find, you know, I don’t find excitement in that, you know, I mean, I want to be out there, you know, honestly, I just want to be out there talking to folks, listening folks, getting the next opportunity to really help somebody solve some issues.
10:51
So I would much rather be in doing that than sitting at a desk, you know, filling out the paperwork.
10:59
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, but you know, a while back we did that.
11:03
It’s called the color code.
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It’s like a personality assessment, you know, and I’m sure there’s many out there, but under this particular one, they, they match your personality to different colors.
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And my color is a red.
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And the red is like, it’s like the mindset is you always want to go A to BA to BA to B.
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And that’s just me.
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It’s like, I want to, you know, I hear this, I want to go to this, I want to hear this one.
11:25
You know, I’m constantly going that route and thinking about that.
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So when I have to stop that mind process and force myself to sit down and do what I know is important and I know that it needs to be done.
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It’s just I get distracted easy, right?
11:38
And, you know, I want to get back out there and do it now.
11:41
I can relate to that big time.
11:43
My team would totally like.
11:44
Oh, yeah, that’s Chris.
11:45
Yeah, I, I’m, I’m not, I’m not as detailed oriented as people would like me to be.
11:52
Yeah, yeah.
11:54
Now leadership, some people easy transition, other people bit of a struggle.
12:01
How would you describe your transition into sales leadership?
12:06
You know, that’s just something that has been natural for me, I feel, and I attribute that a lot to my upbringing.
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You know, I grew up in a family of six children and I was the oldest.
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So I naturally at a very young age took on some leadership roles there, but I also grew up with some military background in my family.
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And so being a part of that, you know, help also then through, you know, sports, I learned that structure and, and how to to do that.
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So I attribute a lot of that, Chris, to those younger years in my life.
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And then that is just transitioned into my professional career where it seems like no matter where I have been at on my journey, I have found myself in some sort of leadership, you know, capacity.
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So the other thing is, is I just want to go out and, and show and demonstrate how it can be done and then help others learn that they can do the same thing.
13:04
So hopefully that answers your question.
13:09
Oh, it does.
13:09
It’s yeah.
13:11
It’s what are the parts as a leader that you have to work at that you think, you know, like, as we all make mistakes, especially early on the career when you’re, you’re really still learning, what were some of those mistakes and what it, what were the takeaways you had from those, those learning experiences?
13:30
Probably my biggest one was communication.
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And I still want to make sure I continue to work on that even today.
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And you know, communication’s hard.
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Some people say you have to communicate something 7 times before somebody hears it.
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You know, another saying I’ve heard is you have to communicate until you’re sick and tired of hearing it.
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And then when you’re at that point, that’s the first time that somebody finally heard something.
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And so not only the frequency of communication, but also the consistency, you know, needs to be there, the, you know, you have to be clear, you know, that clarity when it comes to communication.
14:05
And so that for me has been something I failed at and I continue to to learn at from an, an early, early in my career.
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And so trying to continue to have better communication, improve my communication skills, whether it’s written, verbal, you know, you learn not to assume things.
14:25
You know, early in my career, I’d be like, hey, we talked about it.
14:29
I assume that everything’s, you know, going down that right path.
14:32
You know, another trick that I learned is how people repeat it back to you, you know, like, hey, just let me know what, what did you hear?
14:38
And sometimes that is also help.
14:40
But definitely for me, communication would be that area that I’ve learned many hard lessons yet.
14:47
Yeah, no, I get it.
14:48
I get it now as a leader, I I’m a big believer.
14:54
Like in any other role, you know, you have to keep learning.
14:57
You have to keep growing.
14:59
What are you doing today to support that within yourself and your role as CRO at Stronghold Data?
15:06
What are you doing to continue your learning journey?
15:09
Well, you know, number one, I, I do, I try to do as much research and reading as I can, whether that’s coming from, you know, online, you know, I’ve got a few books here that I’m, I’m digging into and continue to read.
15:23
Another is, you know, peer groups, you know, I love being a part of peer groups.
15:27
And that’s one of the benefits of being with new charter technologies is that there’s, you know, like I said, over 25 different companies and they all have some component of sales.
15:38
And when we can come together and be a part of those, I’m on, you know, two different sales groups a week and I’m hearing inside from other sales folks at other companies.
15:48
And that really helps continue to keep me, you know, sharp and, and moving forward.
15:53
The, the other component is, is I, I love attending conferences and, you know, having those educational opportunities and even when from a sales perspective here at Stronghold data, you know, we’ll go and support some of these associations and then and in doing so, I had the opportunity to kind of sit in and listen to what they’re talking about.
16:13
So it helps me continue to learn even outside of my, you know, I hate using the word, but it’s true an echo chamber.
16:21
You know, I’m not just learning about technology sales.
16:23
I’m learning about other organizations and what they’re doing.
16:26
And so for me, it’s just a constant state of like listening, trying to gather information.
16:34
What what is the conversation being, you know, had in, in all these other different groups?
16:38
So yeah, now you mentioned a book.
16:41
Is there any particular book you’re into right now that you’re leveraging?
16:44
Yes, absolutely.
16:45
I’m actually reading, I don’t know if you can see this or not, but it’s the Go Giver by Bob Berg and John David Mann that that’s a big one right now.
16:53
And they followed that one up and I’m reading it too.
16:56
Is that Go Giver for sales?
16:59
You know, the first book is kind of like a little fable and it talks about 5 different laws.
17:04
The first one is the law of value.
17:05
And I think that that’s probably really, really important.
17:08
And when we’re talking sales is you, you have to have something of value that you’re contributing.
17:14
And you know what, you may not make a sale today or tomorrow, but when you’re adding value to to that relationship, whether whether you have a signed deal, you know or not, it’s going to come back full forward.
17:28
And that’s why that go giver mentality.
17:30
And then they dive a little bit deeper in the other five values under the go giver for sales and really make it more about how you can implement that into sales.
17:40
You know, a couple of other books, you know, that I’m really big on is the customer experience.
17:46
And you know, there’s a a book on, you know, the effortless experience.
17:50
I don’t know if you’ve heard of that one, Chris.
17:54
It is a, it’s a great book called The Effortless Experience.
17:57
And one I just finished that I thought was fascinating was by the owner and founder of the Savannah Bananas, Jesse Cole.
18:08
Excuse me?
18:09
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:11
If you don’t know who Savannah Bananas are, just look at TikTok.
18:14
They’re all over.
18:15
Oh, it’s all over.
18:16
I mean, it’s amazing to hear his story, Jesse Cole on, on how he started and his mantra is fans 1st and that’s what you’re going to hear when he talks about that.
18:28
So that’s another really good book that has helped me on that, that, you know, client services that just that experience and that effortless experience for any businesses really comes down to how how easy are you able, you know, to work with.
18:47
That’s the, you know, kind of the ultimate question.
18:49
There’s a lot more information that the last one I’m going to throw out there, Chris.
18:54
You know, like I said, I have I have a bunch.
18:56
Here is a complaint free world.
19:03
Yeah.
19:04
And, you know, that’s one of the things that, you know, I guess if we really talk about it is when you’re just always out there complaining and you know, there’s there’s a lot in life to be thankful for.
19:14
And sometimes when you are around me, it kind of just teach me how those people that just want to sit there and complain and how I can better help, you know, navigate those those services.
19:25
So I mean, that’s a lot.
19:27
But that’s what I that’s what I the complaint pre world to me.
19:32
I think it’s, especially as leaders, are we really the complaint?
19:38
Is it really about what I’m complaining about or is it something with me internal?
19:42
More times than not, I think it’s something about ourselves and we’re just using whatever it is we’re talking about as a way to express whatever internal dissatisfaction we have going on or whatever internal issue we have going on.
19:56
On top of that, it’s some accountability.
19:58
Yeah, that comes into that too.
20:00
And ownership.
20:01
Yeah, Yep.
20:02
So let’s go back to Go Giver.
20:04
How did you come across the Go Giver series?
20:08
So under the Go Giver series, this is something that in the, the sales group here at new Charter and the new Charter leadership team decided to to immerse ourselves in and I’m thankful that they did.
20:23
So we actually brought one of the authors to industry event and he talked about the book and we invited people in.
20:31
And since then I’ve really tried to embrace that and, and get into it.
20:35
And quite frankly, Chris, when I started reading it, I found that I had naturally over the years, even back when I was, you know, selling the, the subscription to newspapers already applying kind of these things.
20:47
And I think that’s why the law, the, the, the law of value resonates so much with me is because of that, that idea that you do have to add value to every transaction to every relationship, you know, that that you have.
21:02
And so that’s, that was when I was first turned on to it.
21:06
And you know, it’s been around for, for many years.
21:09
And it also kind of fell hand in hand with some, some sales training I’ve done recently.
21:15
You know, we’ve, I’ve done so many over the years.
21:18
There’s there’s so many good ones out there and under leadership, but this one most recently went through their courses, the Sandler series here.
21:26
You’ve heard of that.
21:26
And they kind of they, they kind of have some similar principles in this go giver mentality.
21:31
But the go giver mentality isn’t just for sales and it just isn’t for leaders.
21:35
I mean, this should be, this is something that, you know, even like a company culture that you could have because everyone within a company or everyone within an organization, you know, can adhere to these five laws that they talked about.
21:47
And the, the premises is obviously the, the more you give, the more you get in return.
21:53
I’m a big believer in that that and we talk about that a lot.
21:57
In my world, nobody buys CRM because they just love CRM.
22:02
They’re buying it for the outcome it can deliver when it’s done correctly.
22:08
That’s the value and that’s what people want.
22:11
I want that value add.
22:13
That’s why I’m investing that money.
22:15
And to me it, you know, anything that you’re trying to sell to anyone, if it’s not providing some type of value to them, I mean, like, why are you wasting your time?
22:26
You know, it, it’s, you have to find what is the that’s basic.
22:30
You know, what’s the value problem?
22:32
You hear that all the time.
22:33
You know what are what’s you know, how are we making a difference?
22:37
How are we helping them?
22:38
What problems are we solving?
22:40
What pain points are we eliminating?
22:41
There’s so many different ways to say it, but all comes back to adding value.
22:46
I agree 100%.
22:48
So how do you leverage this in your day-to-day life as a CRO and building that culture within your team?
22:56
Are you talking about the go giver mentality?
22:58
Exactly.
22:59
Obviously first and foremost for me, I have to, I have to live it.
23:02
I have to breathe it, I have to talk about it.
23:04
And you know, when, when I am together with my team, I try to, you know, equate things back to it.
23:11
So if I’ve gone through something or had a conversation, had a meeting, how to win, you know, I’m trying to point to something in the book.
23:19
And I do the same thing with what we’re doing in the effortless experience, you know, from a customer or client satisfaction standpoint.
23:25
And then, you know, another thing is when we’re, when we’re addressing issues, you know, I, I also try to be like, hey, how could we address it with the go giver mentality?
23:35
And Chris, you know, for me, I’m also even found myself trying to craft my communication around that go giver.
23:41
So again, it’s holding myself accountable to make sure I do it.
23:45
But they got a, you know, the team’s got to hear me talking about it and pointing it out and finding it and challenging them to to do it.
23:51
And it quite frankly has been pretty easy because that’s, it started at the top with our company.
23:56
And so we’re all kind of on that same message.
23:59
Yeah, that’s awesome.
24:00
What’s so there’s five roles we talked about world number one.
24:05
What’s the next role that you would like to talk about that you think would be helpful to other leaders listening to the law of authenticity.
24:13
You know, I’m a huge on that as a leader.
24:16
You know, I think that that’s a big one to me is you, you have to when when you’re out, whether, you know, it’s prospects, current clients, vendors, just in the greater community across whatever you are, you need to be authentic.
24:29
You, you.
24:30
And honestly, people can tell when you’re not.
24:34
Oh yeah.
24:35
And they can sense that in person.
24:37
They can sense this probably even in podcast.
24:39
They can do it even through, you know, digital communication.
24:42
But that’s another big one to me.
24:45
Oh yeah, yeah, I, to me it, it’s at every level, every aspect of your life, you have to live your authentic self and be, you know, that takes a degree of vulnerability.
24:56
You have to be willing to make yourself vulnerable to truly be authentic.
25:01
Can you talk about what role vulnerability plays in, in your life?
25:06
Well, you know, I might in from a professional standpoint, you know, this, this role of authenticity or vulnerability that you’re you’re alluding to is people want to get to know you and they want to get to know the real you.
25:19
Because, you know, you’ve heard us say in sales, they’re not buying the company, they’re buying, buying you.
25:25
You know, there’s a lot of truth to that.
25:26
But for me to go in there, it does take trust at some level, depending on, you know, how deep you want to get, but just being natural and having those natural conversations like what you and I are doing here, you know, we’ve only talked, you know, digitally.
25:44
This is our first time to really sit here and have a deeper conversation, Chris And I already feel the, the, the authenticity between the two of us.
25:51
And so sometimes it’s hard for people to be that way.
25:55
For me, it it, it’s that has not been my challenge just because I’m very comfortable talking, talking to folks and opening up to folks.
26:03
And I think that that shows even from an outward appearance, you know, where communication that what is that percentage?
26:08
Some like 90% is non verbal communication.
26:12
And part of that is also listening.
26:16
And, you know, a big part of it actually is, is where people want to be heard and, you know, asking the right questions and being willing to even go a little bit deeper than the surface level.
26:27
So I quit that.
26:28
Back to sales.
26:28
When we’re talking about sales, Chris, is that, you know, as a, when you’re out there talking to folks, it’s typically not the first thing that they tell you that’s really, you know, keeping them up at night or you know it.
26:39
So you have to have the ability to #1 not jump on something right away.
26:44
You know, I like just pounce on it, but make sure you’re hearing the whole story.
26:49
And then sometimes you, you just got to be patient, you know, because developing the trust on the other side is just as important for me to, and, and that helps with that authenticity.
27:01
Oh yeah.
27:02
I the listening part is such a big part of being authentic too, because if you’re not listening, how the heck can you be authentic?
27:08
You’re not hearing anything they’re saying.
27:10
You’re making it about yourself, not them.
27:13
I mean, I know for me personally, when somebody’s calling me for help with CRM, it’s usually not CRM like I have to really understand the why behind the request.
27:27
And that takes questions, that takes curiosity and, and that takes listening to really hear like, all right, they’re talking about this, but I think they’re really talking about this.
27:39
I need, I need to know what’s really going on behind the scenes or what’s really behind this conversation we’re having.
27:48
And, you know, to do that, I can’t make it about myself.
27:53
So can you talk about that in terms of like with your own personal experiences, but also how you try to create that listeners within your team as a leader?
28:03
You know, because I think that is such a key part of engaging and being successful in our way.
28:08
Like we talked about before, it starts with me.
28:10
So I have to challenge myself to make sure I’m listening to to everyone on the team, but also, you know, showing by example.
28:17
A lot of times I’ll take team members with me and you know, and then we kind of talk about it.
28:22
So not only can they see it on how I’m doing it, but they also see it in action.
28:28
And then we just kind of talk about it because even when we’re having follow up conversations, maybe they’ve they’ve worked on something and we’re needing feedback.
28:35
It’s asking the right questions.
28:37
Well, what you know, what did they tell you or what, what did they mean?
28:40
You know, stuff like that.
28:43
You know, one thing that it leads me to think about, Chris, is when, when we’re trying to be authentic, when we’re trying to be vulnerable, when we’re trying to listen The other time, sometimes the, and this kind of goes back to the, the go giver mentality is I’m hearing things.
29:01
And because I like networking, I typically I, I want to like, if there’s someone even better than me that can help them, I, I want them to know that I’m, I’m vested in their success as much as I, you know, or more so than what I’m vested in me.
29:18
And so that comes out like, you know, if I need to make a referral to somebody else or hey, you know, I know this person can help or this person has, has more answers.
29:28
And so to me, and the reason why I bring it up, Chris, is that is a way to kind of demonstrate that you’re listening to not just because I’m trying to like sell you a solution or make the sale.
29:39
I truly want them to believe that I’m, I’m here to ensure the best outcomes for them.
29:45
And that and, and I think that feeds into both of those laws we just talked about.
29:49
Yeah.
29:50
Yeah.
29:51
Because you said it earlier, like, hey, might not win this sale now, but if I’m being authentic, showing some vulnerability and just maybe saying, hey, look, we may, we’re probably not the best solution for you right now.
30:04
More times than not, later on down the road, they’re going to need something else and they’re going to come back to you because you were so authentic and, and played that role of a trusted advisor.
30:15
And like, I truly just want to help you, right?
30:18
And that that leads into a little bit like we were talking about a practice we use is called the blue sky session.
30:24
It’s just similar to that, but it also makes me think about, you know, one of the things that sand the Sandler process actually put this terminology in my head.
30:34
It’s called the upfront contract.
30:35
And there’s different components to that.
30:37
But one of the parts to that is, you know what, we may not be a good fit and you’re OK to say no to me.
30:43
And, and, and you kind of, you know, let them know that we are just going to have a conversation.
30:48
We are going to be authentic and you know, and it’s OK, you know, I don’t want you to be stressed out about it.
30:55
I don’t need to be stressed out about it.
30:56
So that all kind of feeds into that same conversation.
31:00
No, I agree totally because again, it it has to like you have to set that tone right at the beginning, you know, and just put yourself out there and like, I’m just here to help and we’ll figure it out together.
31:14
Shifting topics a little bit.
31:16
Jason CRM.
31:17
Do you love it or do you hate it?
31:20
I’ve had both experiences, Chris.
31:22
I ain’t that’s my #1 answer, you know, my first experience into a CRM, you know, back in the early days of SAS, you know, applications was not the best.
31:37
It was just, you know, back then everything was like really clunky.
31:40
And you’re talking about a personality that I already had that we discussed is that I hate that paperwork side of, I hate the paperwork side of things.
31:48
And so my first four way was not good.
31:51
And then I, I actually shifted my career out of the financial aspect and I actually got into more of the technology aspect.
31:58
And at this time I was with a, a software, a startup software company.
32:03
And in this particular software company, we took them from a, you know, just a, a local application to where we got into some of the much larger markets across the United States.
32:14
And we started with a very small startup CRM and I actually loved it.
32:20
And part of the reason why I loved it is because it made my role as it is sales at the time very, very easy.
32:28
And then of course, when we transitioned in with a, a much larger organization, we got in with a very large CRM.
32:35
And again, I went back to I absolutely hate it, you know, just because it seemed like it was not built around me as a, as a sales, you know, professional, my #1 pet peeve.
32:47
And that’s what the number one problem I see, you know, from my side of things, when people come to us for a rescue or re implementation, it’s because they were focused on features and hey, isn’t this a cool tool?
32:59
And it gets over complicated.
33:01
They forget who this tool is really for, right?
33:04
You know, it’s there to be a tool to help sell more, drive more revenue, drive growth.
33:12
That’s the why behind CRM, right?
33:14
Well, you, you, you can also like really bog down the process.
33:18
Oh yeah.
33:20
So when I, you know, I’ve been with Stronghold now 10 years out of their, their 30 years.
33:25
So in the, my first CRM when I came on was just kind of like, it felt like it was just a afterthought within the application that they were using.
33:37
And then we transitioned to to a few over the years, but still I I go back to making the ease of use for the sales professional that’s out there.
33:48
If you’re asking for them to input the data and track that data.
33:51
We want to make that as easy.
33:52
Kind of even goes back to what we were talking about with the effortless experience, the book that I’m reading, our fans first kind of philosophy of Jesse Cole and the Savannah Bananas.
34:00
But it now what I’m seeing in, in the CRM we’re using, you know, they’re kind of tying in sales and marketing at the same time.
34:11
And so there’s two different buckets.
34:12
And in my role, sometimes, you know, when I’m seeing the sale side versus the marketing side, it’s almost like two different sides of the house.
34:21
And I’d really like to see some more continuity between those, those two components of it.
34:27
Also, you know, I, I know more and more people are trying to take the CRMS and be able to import, export the data between the two.
34:37
I think that that would be another area that we’re currently in is taking the data from the CRM and getting it into our main business LINE app.
34:46
So that’s also the challenge.
34:49
We, it’s always top three issue whenever we come to do a rescue is too many data silos, too many manual processes, too many spreadsheets because our core systems don’t support what we’re doing.
35:01
And again, people are forgetting the why behind all this stuff is we’re trying to make it easier.
35:08
We’re trying to make it more efficient.
35:10
We need something that’s actually going to work for us that I don’t want my sales people being spreadsheet jockeys, data jockeys and data entry clerks, whatever you want to call it.
35:20
I want them selling and I I want to give them a platform that’s going to actually proactively Dr.
35:28
stuff to them so they’re not in there searching through.
35:32
And yeah, but I can talk about this stuff all day, but we’re not here to talk about me.
35:37
What?
35:39
You talked a little bit about AI before, but what vision or what’s your vision of how AI can help improve CRM overall as a tool for sales teams?
35:53
Do you have an idea of how what you would like to see AI do you know, I think that, you know, the ability of AI to process data and help make projections on that data is going to be very, very valuable.
36:08
And I know that we’re in early stages of that.
36:10
And what I mean by that is whether you’re on that marketing component where like, hey, is this marketing campaign working?
36:16
You know, where, where do we need to double down on maybe where we need to not, you know, do some of that.
36:21
So judging that effectiveness, you know, on the marketing side could help.
36:25
You know, marketing’s always one of those buckets that when you’re looking at you’re like, hey, am I really getting the ROI that, that I’m after?
36:33
But if you don’t do it and, and sometimes it’s really hard to track.
36:36
But on the sales component, you know, I think AI is coming in very handy and you know, whether it’s in the CRM or they’re using it outside of a CRM, it’s helps in communication, it helps in, in research and maybe can help in again, if you’re working with a, a client or a prospect on building like a technology road map for them, you know, and how they’re going to leverage it.
37:03
So the use cases I don’t think are there’s not a shortage of, but I think that the sales professionals out there is if they’re looking to continue to grow their, you know, their career, they’re going to embrace some sort of AI to continue to, to move forward.
37:20
And you know, and you want to be careful because in my opinion, you know, AI makes it really, really easy to lose that authenticity that we were talking about earlier.
37:27
So yes, it can help you maybe on some of the paperwork things that I struggle with, you know, and that’s what I’m leveraging a lot of it.
37:34
But you know, don’t lose sight of that.
37:38
Yeah, one thing that I had a discussion yesterday in, there’s a private conversation, but I want to show you here in the podcast that what people, I think sales leaders we need to understand is our customers, our prospects that we’re trying to sell to.
37:56
They’re using AI to become way more educated about what they want, what they need, what their options are than ever before.
38:06
And that’s only going to continue.
38:07
That’s only going to go up.
38:10
So it’s not only how can we leverage AI to do better at what we’re doing, we have to understand our customers are doing the same thing and we have to be ready for that 100%.
38:20
In fact, Chris, that, you know, over the last year, I’ve spent a lot of my time, I’m a firm believer in education, you know, trying to educate outside of the four walls of our technology, you know, business here.
38:32
But to the clients we serve, to the prospects we’re after is I’m out there, you know, evangelizing for use of AI within their departments.
38:40
And I, I think that you’re spot on when it comes to how they’re going to be able to research and do more on their own.
38:46
But we can also take that to them and show them maybe how they can do it.
38:52
And that’s good.
38:53
That’s that law, that value, the law of value we talked about I feel is very strong to that.
38:57
But 100% agree with you on, on how it’s going to be a game changer for the clients or prospects we’re we’re targeting.
39:04
Yeah.
39:05
Well, Jason, what are time here in Sales Lead Dog?
39:07
This has been a great discussion.
39:08
I really appreciate you sharing your your story with with our listeners here on Sales Lead Dog.
39:14
If people want to reach out, connect with you, they want to reach out and learn more about Stronghold data.
39:19
What’s the best way for them to do that?
39:21
For me personally, reach out on my LinkedIn profile, you know, I’m under Jason, you know, Rinker there.
39:26
Feel free to connect.
39:28
If you want to learn more about Stronghold data, just visit our website, strongholddata.com and my contact information is there.
39:34
Just click the info button.
39:36
They can get you to me.
39:37
But those would be the two big ways.
39:38
Chris, that’s awesome.
39:39
So if you, if you did not catch that, no worries.
39:42
We have it in our show notes.
39:44
You can get that at impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog.
39:48
Well, you’ll get not only this episode of Sales Lead Dog, but all are close to 150 episodes.
39:53
So be sure to check that out.
39:55
Check out Jason’s LinkedIn profile and connect with him and be sure to subscribe to Sales Lead Dog so you get not only this episode, but all our future episodes.
40:06
Jason, thank you again for coming on Sales Lead Dog and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog pack.
40:12
Thank you, Sir.
40:13
I appreciate your time, Chris.
40:14
It’s been a pleasure.
40:16
Awesome.
40:19
As we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog, be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media.
40:27
Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, watch the videos on YouTube and you can also find our episodes on our website at impellercrm.com/sales.
40:39
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