0:31
My guest on today’s episode is Jeff Fleischer.
0:34
Jeff is CEO of Pro Scale Partners, also the founder.
0:40
Jeff, welcome to Sales Lead Dog.
0:42
Thank you, Chris.
0:42
Good to be here.
0:43
Tell me a bit about Pro Scale Partners.
0:46
Pro Scale Partners is a culmination of sort of my career in sales.
0:53
I’ve spent about just over 20 years in startups, mainly cybersecurity startups and have lots of stories And you know, I feel like PhD level experience in in flipping these companies as as an operator.
1:08
And a couple of years ago I, I forged my own company to advise CE OS and in the beginning potentially find my own Co founders to start something.
1:18
And then I just evolved into wow.
1:20
There’s so many gaps that you take for granted the knowledge that you have and your journey and how important that is for others that you assume have it.
1:28
So I created this company and, and hopes to helping other startups and other businesses grow and scale.
1:37
And, you know, I just love, I love it.
1:39
It’s it, it doesn’t even feel like work.
1:41
Yeah.
1:42
Now I, I am very involved in the Colorado entrepreneurial community where I’m based and I love working with young entrepreneurs.
1:51
They may not be young in age, but they’re, you know, early stage entrepreneurs may be the first time they’ve ever done this.
1:58
And it is, I totally get what you’re saying it I come out of those, the time I spend with them with so much energy.
2:04
It it really is a wonderful time and experience that yeah, it is fantastic.
2:09
And you know, they’re so in love with what they’re doing and they’re passionate about what they’re doing, but maybe they’re not thinking about EBITDA exercises or financial modelling or that they’re going to need a runway and investment in the near future.
2:24
So you know, that market feedback is, is crucial in, in sort of putting down those happy years and, and really listening to the market and surrounding yourself with teams that that are also supporting the mission, but have their own, you know, strengths and finance and marketing in other areas that you might not is key.
2:43
So it’s great to have somebody else looking over your shoulder and, you know, kind of showing you where you’re going and making sure you’re prepared.
2:50
Yeah, I, I know from my personal experience when I engaged with clients, they’re often times absolutely experts in whatever services they deliver, but they are floundering and lost when it comes to marketing and sales.
3:06
They absolutely are.
3:08
Just like we’re just throwing mud at the wall to see what’s going to stick and we’re praying something sticks.
3:15
Yeah, I love analogies.
3:16
And, you know, the greatest guitar player in the world probably needs a lead singer and probably isn’t playing the drums.
3:23
And, you know, and, and when you’re building out orchestras, you know, you might be the conductor at some point, but you’re not playing all the instruments.
3:29
And it’s, it’s, it’s tough to, when it’s your baby and you put on all the caps, all the hats in the beginning and you get success, It’s tough to delegate and let it go and, and truly scale, but it’s, it’s imperative.
3:43
So it’s it’s it’s always interesting meeting kind of the smartest people in the world on these topics and, you know, showing them the gaps that they have as far as scaling business and in a way that’s respectful.
3:57
It’s a it’s a journey.
3:58
You’re almost part psychologist from that perspective.
4:01
Oh, yeah, it does get emotional.
4:03
Yeah.
4:03
Tell me about your first sales job.
4:05
Is that something you were, you thought like, hey, I want to be in sales or what’s your story around getting your first sales job?
4:12
So so I was my first real sales job as a as a kid was managing a place called Ski Market in Massachusetts.
4:20
So I was selling skis and you know, under, and I was a skier back then and fit people for their bindings and things.
4:27
And it was a seasonal job.
4:28
And when that season ended, I was getting a phone call from a store that was opening nearby called Gateway computers.
4:36
So that was, that was it for me.
4:38
Once I, I took that position, I, I learned about, we got to take these things apart, put them back together.
4:44
I learned about networking, started to kind of build my own websites and, and just went basically, I was full blown curious on what this is in 1997.
4:57
And then it pivoted to software sales and all kinds of, and, and eventually cybersecurity.
5:02
But I credit just that curiosity of, of whatever it is you’re selling to, you know, leading you to where you hopefully want to be.
5:12
And thankfully, because I do enjoy technology, now we’re advising on building data centers, we’re raising money for, you know, big projects out in the Midwest in, in a Greenway that that doesn’t leverage or need a lot of water.
5:27
So I, I often go back to that gateway computer time, time frame where, you know, I was selling physical computers and then my next journey was getting the mainframe, which as I evolved to cybersecurity and, and encryption and phishing and other things, I thought that was way in the past.
5:45
There’s no way I’m going to get brought back into hardware.
5:48
And here we are selling data Centers for AI initiatives and quantum.
5:53
And so it’s, it’s almost like, you know, you never know when you’re going to go back into the memory bank and, and, and sort of drawn those experiences that, that are now evolved, but still familiar enough for you to jump in with your curiosity.
6:07
So, yeah, that was, that was one of my first more impactful, meaningful sales jobs.
6:13
Yeah.
6:14
Beyond, beyond curiosity, what else?
6:17
Are there any other attributes or things that you really have drawn upon that have led you to the success you’ve achieved?
6:23
Yeah, grit, grit.
6:27
And, and you know, I, I would say you don’t want to be obsessive and, and be too competitive, right?
6:33
But you, you certainly want to be your best.
6:35
And in sales it, it’s a lot like being an athlete.
6:38
Yes, you have a team, but you’re also measured on how you perform.
6:43
So I, I think grit and, and determination and just making sure you’re servicing the customers the right way or delivering the message right way and you’re passionate about it.
6:52
Because I like to, I like to say these two phrases, parallel imaging, putting yourself in the shoes of the person that has that problem.
7:01
How would you want to solve if that was you?
7:03
I, I’ve, I’ve always kind of looked at that because it, you, you spend a little bit more time caring about that problem, the chasm or gap that it is that you’re solving for.
7:13
And, and I think a person senses it.
7:15
They, they understand that you’re not just giving them a, a pitch, reading a few bullet points and then insert in patients, right?
7:23
You want to get to the next step.
7:24
You’re actually truly consultative and you’re right there shoulder to shoulder with them in their pain and, and building that trust and how to get, how to get out of this situation with the solution that you’re, that you’re providing.
7:35
And sometimes it’s not your solution, it’s somebody else that you know, you might know of.
7:39
And, and that’s even better, right?
7:41
When you truly build a trust with somebody and recommend something else, you don’t benefit from these things pay themselves forward and, and that’s called building a relationship.
7:51
So the other thing I’d say is, is on that element in my career, just in cybersecurity with about 6 different companies, we’re selling to the same companies, you know, so if you have a good reputation, you’re a hard worker, you show up just like going to the gym.
8:10
If you show up, that’s, that’s more than most, right?
8:13
So just having that determination and grit with the customer in mind, with the problems you’re solving in mind, not necessarily your solution.
8:22
I think that’s a good recipe for success.
8:25
Absolutely.
8:26
It’s, you know, my world.
8:27
I say my team probably gets so tired of me hearing, you know, saying this stuff.
8:30
They hear from you all the time is that, you know, we sell CRM and nobody buys CRM because they love CRM.
8:40
They’re buying it because they are trying to achieve a specific outcome for their business.
8:45
And that’s what we need to focus on.
8:47
That’s what we need to understand.
8:49
We need to put ourselves in their shoes, as you said, and how do we help them get that outcome they’re seeking.
8:56
It’s just a tool.
8:57
We sell a tool.
8:58
That’s it.
8:59
I want one button that shows me everything, right?
9:02
That’s that’s what they want.
9:04
They they want simple so they can get back to the golf course or whatever.
9:08
Yeah, it’s like right now it’s a giant time suck for me or, you know, my team mates, whatever.
9:13
But it’s like, that’s what we need to focus on.
9:15
And how do we best leverage this tool, whatever that tool might be in your, you know, that you’re trying to sell.
9:21
That’s what they care about, you know, and, and with CRM being pivotal for any organization that wants to track the activity, track the, the trends, looking at your customer acquisition costs, your time to close and, and your forecasting.
9:39
If you just have a bunch of data in there and you’re, you know, scraping emails, you know, that’s OK.
9:45
But but what trends are you seeing?
9:47
You need buy in from everybody.
9:48
You need the CFO, the marketing team, your product team, you need buy in from everybody to take that feedback.
9:55
So it’s almost like the CRM is a language that you define for your culture, your initiative.
10:03
So it’s somewhat custom built so that you’re all speaking from the same sheet of music or the same language.
10:11
And then obviously the the other dreaded word for sales is KP is.
10:14
But if you understand the why, and this is another, another major point I want to make for, for salespeople, sales leaders, for for the board, the power of why.
10:27
If your folks are running around in circles in their own little vacuum of hey, we love this product, it’s easy to sell, everybody loves it.
10:36
Why aren’t we getting paid the commissions on this that we should or, or why is the marketing team talking about something else?
10:42
This doesn’t make any sense.
10:44
Well, that product may not be profitable.
10:47
It might be, you know, on its on its last couple of years of relevancy and there’s a, a movement or shift to platforms or something else that we have to drive towards.
10:58
Otherwise we’re, you know, this is going to be one year of good sales and then we’re done.
11:02
So, so understanding and understanding the why and rolling that down is, is a real easy way to get people aligned.
11:10
Yeah, it without it, you’re not going to have alignment.
11:13
It’s going to be the Wild West.
11:15
People are going to be chasing whatever’s the path of leaf least resistance as you’re saying, you know, like, hey, this sells really super easy.
11:23
Let’s focus there, not understanding that there’s no margin here or it’s not, you know, it’s not part of our strategic goals.
11:31
You know, strategically we’re trying to do this.
11:34
You guys are all going off this way.
11:36
You know, it’s, and it’s a tough kind of chicken and egg thing sometimes because you, you, you know, if, if there’s a real strategic initiative and it’s not fully baked, you probably don’t want to share too much.
11:47
But without making yourself look like you don’t know what you’re doing as a leader.
11:52
But you know, if it’s going to be put in into a production mentality, you at least have to have messaging that satisfies the troops that are carrying out the sales missions and in concert with marketing and product and the rest of the go to market team.
12:08
So there has to be at least a baseline.
12:10
Why, even if it’s temporary, Hey, in the next 90 days, we’re going to put a SWAT team together to go figure out is this a viable product?
12:18
We have 3 design partnerships with three different verticals to, you know, work on this together and, and carve out value.
12:26
Great.
12:27
Let’s go versus just here sell it.
12:30
You know, a little bit of context goes a long way.
12:34
Yeah, it, it really does it.
12:36
It’s people, you can’t just tell people to do this because I said so, you know, that might work a little bit, but it’s not going to work for the long term, you know, not at all.
12:47
You, you mentioned KP is earlier.
12:50
That’s something I see a lot when we come in and are, are implementing CRM or doing a rescue for, for a client on their CRM is I’ll ask like what KP is you guys leveraging today?
13:02
And I’ll often times it’s crickets coming back.
13:08
Do you see that a lot?
13:09
And when you do, how do you deal with that?
13:12
Yeah, of course, I’m never going to name names, but I’ve seen ranges from no KPIs, no sales methodology.
13:21
They had even invested in Salesforce and it was just at the default, you know, placeholders for where a deal was in, in the, in the journey all the way all the way to something that worked for somebody 20-30 years ago.
13:35
And they just kind of, they’re familiar with it.
13:37
So they keep it that way.
13:39
So what, what I like to do is come in with a baseline.
13:43
I don’t care if you’re selling vehicles, software, skis at, at, you know, whatever it is you’re selling, you, you need to identify your prospects.
13:53
That’s an entire team.
13:54
The sales team certainly calls on their, you know, list of folks that they know when they’re comfortable and believe in what they’re selling, I’m sure they’re going to start reaching out to their favorite customers.
14:03
And marketing is doing cold outreach and campaigns and trying to generate leads.
14:07
So the identification stage is really the entire company and, and once you identify, you qualify, which can be done.
14:16
You know, there’s AI bots that can help qualify people on the website.
14:20
There’s certainly those discovery calls, maybe business development reps and inside sales reps that might kind of take on a lot of that shovelling digging.
14:31
And then there’s assess.
14:32
Once you’ve qualified it, now you’re assessing, you’re assessing their team, their budget, their, you know, the way they operate, their gaps.
14:40
So that’s kind of the first leg is identify, qualify, assess, and you can rename them whatever you want, but those physical activities and exercises need to happen and then you’re proving, negotiating and closing.
14:53
So I, I break it down into those like 6 different buckets and split them, split them in half where you have kind of a pre sale.
15:01
You know, you’re, you’re not necessarily forecasting this at a high, at a high percentage.
15:06
And then a post post iteration where, OK, now you know, we’re proving the concept.
15:10
They have a demo, they have maybe a, a trial engagement and we’re proving we do what we do and, and obviously negotiating and, and closing according, you know, in the right, in the right way.
15:23
So, so once that’s established, you might take out a stage here and there, you might add stages, but those are, I like to enter into kind of the reality of whatever you’re selling, you’re going to go through this journey and, and then insert those and then start measuring, you know, how much time are we in each stage?
15:40
What collateral and, you know, marketing assets do we need?
15:45
What brought them to this stage?
15:46
What was the messaging they heard?
15:48
You know, all the contacts you can collect.
15:50
I think ACRM is built for that, right?
15:52
And and then you can fine tune it to measure, you know, are you approaching the power of 40 in, in concert with your accounting systems So you can create board level reports.
16:04
If you’re looking to raise, at some point, you’re going to have to be responsible for that amount that you’ve raised and report back the status of the business.
16:12
And, and so I think that you need at least a baseline to understand each stage and then start measuring what’s happening, what’s our customer acquisition cost, What’s the time to close time in each stage?
16:24
And then look for micro trends.
16:26
If you have 5 salespeople, maybe there’s regional trends, maybe there’s different habits that certain folks are doing.
16:32
And not to compare or berate folks on calls, but more, you know, shine a light on, hey, guys, this like a football play, right?
16:42
This play is working for this team.
16:44
Maybe we should try it because we’re weak in this area.
16:48
Let’s go see if this has some success.
16:49
And, and so I feel like it’s, it’s a, a CRM is, is sort of like your, your Bible in a way.
16:56
If you build it the right way or it’s a bunch of garbage.
16:59
If it’s just a check box, say we have ACRM, it’s just a collection of all of our stuff.
17:04
You’re hoarding information and not using anything with it.
17:07
And you’re not purging things you don’t need and fine tuning it.
17:10
So there’s a whole, a whole philosophy there that I can probably spend, you know, Dave’s talking to you about.
17:16
Yeah, it is.
17:17
I, I, I often am shocked that you know that.
17:23
And I don’t know why because I see it over and over again for 20 years.
17:26
But, you know, I’ll talk to VP of sales or CRO, whatever that you know.
17:30
And is it a lack of understanding of the business or just something else that’s preventing them from addressing this issue of, you know, we don’t have a structured sales process, we don’t have the KPIs, We’re not really measuring things.
17:47
What what’s behind that in your experience?
17:51
Well, a few trends I’ve seen are shifts from the way they’ve done business before and maybe a consulting model and now they have software.
18:02
Now they have to measure differently, so they get comfortable and more of a career lifestyle where they’re focused more on, say the cash and the bank account versus the movement of the burn and, and the, and the top line and the R&D that you pour into it and your competitors and all the different things where I think they just get comfortable and they don’t realize the, you know, the, the challenges that that are in, in the environment that these, you know, software as a service endeavors to encapsulate like it’s, it’s overwhelming.
18:35
So I feel like a lot of folks just look at that as like, well, you know, we’re let’s just put our head down and sell.
18:41
Yeah, that’s what I say.
18:43
It’s, you know, and it’s kind of like saying like, hey, I’m going to go play golf, right?
18:48
And I’m just give me my driver.
18:49
I’m just going to grip it and RIP it.
18:51
Yeah.
18:51
Well, what’s around the corner, man?
18:53
Maybe you should lay up with A5 iron.
18:56
Maybe not on this hole.
18:57
Maybe in two holes you do that.
18:58
But what is your strategy?
19:00
You know, so they lean on their, on what got them there, right.
19:04
And, and we all have heard this phrase, what got you there might not what got you here might not get you there.
19:09
And so I feel like a lot of people got there.
19:11
They have the, you know, the validation that they did something right.
19:14
They have an ego and confidence in that decision and they don’t see a need for it because it, they didn’t need it to get here.
19:23
So it’s a bit of a shift, but another saying is, you know, nobody has scaled meaningfully on their own.
19:30
They’ve needed teams and as soon as you have other teams involved with other purposes and functions, you need to measure that and orchestrate all of it into, in this case, CRM.
19:43
In other cases, threat hunting is a is a near and dear to be endeavour from cybersecurity.
19:49
I was with Team Comrie for five years and they were saving lives, literally saving lives with their data.
19:54
It was called pure signal and it was basically Internet intelligence.
19:58
Things that were happening on the Internet, they could track.
20:03
To a certain extent to show like this person was at this location and did something bad right to to apprehend or you know, these folks are moving in this area.
20:13
You might want to get out of this area and and war territories.
20:16
A lot of crazy data that that that you know these people rely on to literally save lives.
20:24
They’re not necessarily using ACRM, but they’re orchestrating that intelligence, sharing it in, in, you know, the new patterns that they’re finding.
20:33
They have to keep track.
20:34
They’re not just jumping in and Willy nilly solving a problem and then logging out.
20:39
They’re they’re tracking the progression of the art of threat hunting in their systems and, and orchestrations.
20:46
And you know, we do that.
20:47
We we might think of Splunk or threat connect in, in, in different anomaly folks like that that provide tips in, in the why would it make sense to do that in the thread hunting world and not the sales world or any other world.
21:02
You need to track accounting and let’s say QuickBooks or something like that.
21:06
So what?
21:07
Why wouldn’t you do that in, in sales in marketing?
21:10
Yeah, not exactly.
21:11
It’s insane to me.
21:13
It’s I’ve had this conversation many times where with people who want to ask that question, they’ll be like, it’s like you say, Hey, status quo is easier.
21:21
I just put my head down in sales.
21:22
As long as I’m hitting my sales numbers, we’re good, right?
21:26
And it’s like you’re good now, but what if something changes in the marketplace and you’re still going down this path when you really should be going over here, over there?
21:37
Six months from now, a year from now, you could be in big trouble.
21:41
You know, and if you don’t have that data, if you’re not measuring things, you’re not able to see those trends, identify those trends, you’re going to be on the, the, the back end of that response instead of being on the front end saying, hey, we need to start shifting some stuff.
21:58
Yeah, if, if you’re going to say that, and I’m guilty of this, I was a, a top sales guy.
22:02
And that’s why I got into sales leadership because, you know, I, I was one of those, I don’t want to say arrogant, but ignorant salespeople that thought, man, I’m crushing my number.
22:14
I’m the number one sales guy.
22:15
Like they should build a statue of me.
22:17
I mean, this is how we really think as salespeople.
22:19
And you know what?
22:20
Why am I good?
22:22
I probably didn’t know why at the level I needed to.
22:25
And then why is it no longer going to be good in a year or two when the competitors catch up and do different things And you know, you’re still kind of doing the same thing.
22:34
You know, football, you know, they’re not running offenses from 1987 anymore for reasons, right?
22:41
So I look at, I look at that, what it comes back to the why again, you know, and, and, and one other thing with, with scaling teams, you know, salespeople becoming leaders and, and all kinds of folks becoming leaders.
22:57
You start to see patterns when you have access to this data and you start to see how you can replicate and build, you know, repeatable systems and, and just really add more value than an than as an individual contributor.
23:13
Because you’re, you’re now almost, I don’t want to say cloning yourself, but you’re scaling your capabilities to, you know, at one point I had 52 people on my team.
23:24
There’s no way I could outperform those people myself against them.
23:29
You know, we were, you know, thousands of times stronger in that sort of system that, that we had.
23:35
And even then it felt chaotic, like we still don’t have a great handle of, of the data that we should have, even though we were probably better than most.
23:44
You’re never I, I feel like you’re never fully comfortable.
23:47
There’s always that storm.
23:49
It comes in unexpectedly, even though you’re collecting as much data as you can.
23:53
It’s you know, you should be a little paranoid and, and, and without ACRM and without a, a tight methodology.
24:02
Good luck.
24:03
You’re now you’re blind to me.
24:04
It’s always heroic effort, you know, because if I was just talking with someone who was sharing with me, he was working with a company where, you know, they would lose a salesperson, everything would go down and then it’d take a while to back build back up again.
24:20
Yeah.
24:21
So it’s constantly up and down, up and down.
24:23
Well, they had no process.
24:25
They had, you know, they’re they’re the the systems.
24:27
Nothing was set up to people move on.
24:31
It’s a reality of selling very few to people stay long term right anymore.
24:36
So what are you doing to account for that in your systems, right.
24:42
I, I’ve invested in add-ons to CRMS that do sales enablement where, you know, especially when, when COVID hit, you know, there’s a lot of more free time at home, let’s call it, you know, we’re all stuck at home.
24:57
And so instead of flying out to headquarters and having a whole team meeting and you know, you’re, you’re going through these practice exercises, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re walking through mock up sales environments and going through objection handling and all those things that, that are pretty cool.
25:16
We kind of started to replicate them through a few different video platforms.
25:20
And you know, and, and experimenting with constant evolution.
25:25
And, and if you know, at the time you’re thinking, Hey, this is what works.
25:30
But then when you look back to what you put six months ago and a year ago and two years ago, and we, this was a five year journey, you start to realize like this worked and it might have worked for 1/4 or two.
25:42
And then it evolved into something else based on the data, data-driven decisions.
25:46
And I don’t know about you, but I, I, I’m a, I’m a big golfer.
25:51
So, and I use a lot of analogies because I think it just gets to the point quicker.
25:56
But if you are, let’s say, a golfer and you’re about to hit this shot and you’re just not sure, you’re in between clubs and you know, you’re you’re kind of whenever you’re not sure and you’re about to make a swing, that’s not a good place to be.
26:10
If you’re a salesperson and you’re kind of sure that this is what they need, but you’re not 100%, you make that swing.
26:15
It’s not a comfortable place, right?
26:17
But if I tell you that the wind’s in your face, so go with the club, that’s longer because it’s going to even out and then the pins in the middle.
26:24
So even if it’s a little long, you still are in a great spot.
26:28
And now I have all those kind of concerns melting away.
26:31
That might be my caddy.
26:33
I’m now probably my shoulders are dropped and I’m comfortable and I’m more likely to execute the shot.
26:39
So if you don’t have a caddy for your sales, that’s what a a CRM is if it’s tuned correctly.
26:46
Now you can have someone carry your bags and not know a damn thing about golf.
26:50
They’re not necessarily truly a good caddy for you, which is what I think a lot of salespeople experience.
26:55
They experience CRMS that are just capturing information for no purpose that they see worthy.
27:02
They’re not attached to the Y.
27:06
The advice that they get from it is garbage because if they, they don’t know how to caddy for them.
27:11
So they just, they just, you know, fine, read my emails and, and I’ll throw these, these, these placeholders in, but it’s not a valuable instrument for the organization because it’s a checkbox and an ultimate.
27:22
I think it’s an all too common problem that that, you know, most people would probably agree, most salespeople would say, Hey, I’ve been through this before or I’m going through it now and, and it’s a pain in the neck and it wastes my time.
27:35
But that’s even scarier.
27:36
They they, they don’t have a, you know, a solid caddy giving them the confidence in the in the shot that they’re going to make.
27:43
I was just talking to VP of sales last month at a conference and he’s going, Chris, you want to see my pipeline?
27:50
He pulled out his phone, pulled up his phone and and pulled up Excel and showed me the Excel spreadsheets.
27:57
Like that’s my pipeline.
27:58
It’s like our CRM is crap.
28:00
I can’t trust it.
28:02
And I’m like, and this is a big multinational company, like multibillion dollar revenue, very big.
28:10
Their their sales leader is managing their pipeline in Excel spreadsheet.
28:17
You know, so it’s like, that’s one thing people think like, oh, it’s only the small guys that have these problems and duh, it, it does not matter what size you are, what industry you’re in or whatever, if you’re not doing it the right way, if you’re not setting your team up for success with a strong process, with strong supporting systems, you know, with, with accountability and visibility, it’s hard.
28:41
It’s harder than it should be.
28:42
You know, that reminds me of a, a few stories, a few places where the sales leader used the CRM almost more of a Big Brother like a smothering tool and also a political tool where maybe there wasn’t real pipeline yet, but they were, the reps were forced to, you know, make it real.
29:06
And, and it’s almost like counterintuitive, right?
29:08
Like you’re, you’ve got this kid that’s starting to lift weights and now you’re like forcing him to lift too much and they’re going to get injured.
29:15
You know, you’re, you’re forcing the sale to go through these progressions prematurely to **** *** the customer, to force them into like committing to some time period.
29:24
And you haven’t even gone through the stages.
29:27
And I’ve seen that in, in a few companies actually, where, you know, the, the sales leader is actually the cancer and they’re using that tool to just suck out and prop up a forecast.
29:39
And remember, a lot of these technologies can take 6 to 9 months.
29:42
So they’re buying themselves like a heroic for themselves pat on the back for good part of the year.
29:50
And then they’re hoping that, you know, some of these do drop and that’s grossly irresponsible and and never ends up well.
29:57
But I’ve actually seen that happen a few times.
30:00
And, you know, so there’s another reason for sales people to kind of cringe your CRM.
30:07
Oh, totally.
30:07
It’s one of the bad reasons.
30:09
Yeah, it’s it.
30:11
It’s it, I, I talk about this all the time.
30:14
CRM is not meant to be Big Brother.
30:17
It’s not meant to be a stick you can hit the sales team with.
30:20
Did you get your activities in?
30:22
Did you, you know, make your phone calls?
30:24
Did you schedule your meetings?
30:27
I, I, I’m like that.
30:29
All you’re going to do is push people away.
30:31
It’s you’re all you’re going to get in.
30:32
Yeah, yeah, I got my activities in there, but nothing in there is going to have any value.
30:35
It’s bare minimum.
30:36
I’m going to do the absolute bare minimum I have to do to get you off my back and that’s it.
30:42
And how is that helping the company?
30:43
How is that driving ROI?
30:45
How is that driving growth?
30:46
It’s not.
30:47
I actually LED once I got to this one organization where they had Salesforce, but no methodology and no real, it was kind of running, running kind of like loosey goosey, like everybody’s.
31:01
It’s almost like a Wild West.
31:02
Even territories weren’t set up and all that.
31:04
And once I got in and, and organized the CRM, I was very conscious to not push it on the team yet to sort.
31:12
I call it boiling frog, you know, you just shove it in hot water, you slowly turn up the heat.
31:18
And but I was very, almost, almost aware that I needed to show value for them as individuals to buy into it.
31:27
So I started to look at trends and I would on my sales calls, I would, I would open up with something helpful that the CRM provided that would help them see a new trend or, you know, put something, put something in front of them that that made them think a little differently, that help them with their KPIs, with their goals to sell.
31:47
And, and I did that for at least a couple months where every week I would Draw Something out and, and try to extract something meaningful to show the value of it.
31:56
And then you would see them fall in line, like very slowly, like you’d start to see them, you know, maintaining these, these methodologies and, and actually contributing like, Hey, I want to record a video because I found a new way to talk to the SISSO, the chief information security officer about this issue.
32:14
I demystified it with this analogy.
32:16
And here’s, let me give me 5 minutes.
32:18
Like, great, now you have buy in.
32:20
Now you have people that that are looking at it from a non skeptical perspective because they you’ve proven to them that it’s going to help them make more money.
32:30
That’s what it is.
32:31
Get organized and not be used against them for some other ulterior motive which is beyond me but all too common.
32:40
There are a lot of in in cybersecurity, especially a lot of Co founders that have no sales background.
32:47
They’re engineers, they are the C3P OS of the world in Star Wars, not the Han solos.
32:53
So they almost hate some of the salespeople ’cause there’s a perception of they’re, you know, these good looking people.
33:00
They’re, they must, you know, I was shoved in lockers when I was in high school.
33:04
Like whatever it is, there’s, there’s a little bit of that.
33:07
And, and so it’s almost like, ha, I’m tracking you.
33:11
What, what I, I see what you’re doing.
33:12
And there’s a that’s got to, that’s got to go.
33:16
It does.
33:17
It really does.
33:17
It has no value.
33:18
Absolutely insane.
33:19
I talk about that.
33:20
Leaders lead from the front.
33:21
They’re not behind whacking the sheepherd with a stick.
33:24
That’s a herder.
33:25
That’s not a leader.
33:27
And yeah, so we’ve been talking a lot about CRM.
33:31
I always ask this question, CRM, do you love it or hate it?
33:35
Tell me your perspective on CRM over your years of experience as a sales leader.
33:41
I used to hate it because it was, it was, I was abused and that’s why I tell these stories as an individual contributor.
33:49
I had some bad experiences and wound up keeping my own system on a spreadsheet.
33:55
And, and that doesn’t scale as I did have a, a really good experience as a sales Rep though, with a, with one of the leaders and, and, and, and he kind of, you know, tied all these moving parts together with marketing.
34:10
At the time, we had seven products and it was reduced down to three.
34:13
The reason it was reduced down to 3 was the feedback we’re getting from the CRM.
34:18
You know, you go into Costco, you see three different choices.
34:21
There’s a reason for that.
34:23
Not every company, but you know, we subtraction sometimes equals addition and the amount of time we’re putting into these projects, we’re wasting our support resources and our, and our go to market, our CAC, all these things were were unhealthy.
34:37
So we killed some products and shined on the on the top three and we were later acquired three years later.
34:42
So that that sales leader really opened my eyes to the importance of my individual contribution feeding and data that can help the company steer from my purview on the on the ground.
34:55
And, and as I became a leader, that that really hit me.
34:59
So I would convert people from hating CRMS to actually making the CRM work for them to a degree where a lot of these salespeople become directors.
35:08
And as soon as you become a director, people are reporting to you and you’re getting a benefit from how they sell.
35:14
How are you going to measure it?
35:15
How are you going to know how to teach them what they need to hear, meet them where they’re at?
35:20
So for me, I love it, but it, it needs to, it needs to be clear to somebody of why it’s there.
35:27
And getting back to the why, it’s so much as the why.
35:30
I love that I talk about this all the time.
35:32
You know, my frequent listeners for sales League Dog have heard me say this many, many, many times.
35:37
It’s all about the why.
35:39
If you don’t have as a leader, a clear definition of the why, stop and figure it out, you know, stop what you’re doing and figure out the why.
35:49
Because if you don’t have clarity, how the heck is your team going to have clarity?
35:54
You know, it’s, it’s absolutely critical.
35:57
Like you, you, you said they’re not just going to do what you tell them to do.
36:01
Why would they?
36:02
They need to know why they’re doing it.
36:04
And, and they might appease you, but they’re not really doing it the way that you want anyway.
36:08
So if you, if you, I’ve, I’ve been in situations where I, I didn’t know exactly what the right thing to do was, but I would let them know we need to figure this out.
36:20
So let’s try this for a week.
36:21
Let’s try that for a week.
36:22
Let’s let’s measure and, and eventually we found that we need to kind of insulate this, this project into a SWAT team and, and do some design partnerships because it wasn’t ready.
36:34
But imagine if, if I said just sell it for six months, I’d have people quitting.
36:40
So, you know, you really, if you don’t know, that’s OK, nobody’s perfect, but devise a system or a plan to find out.
36:50
And if you don’t find out, maybe it’s not the right thing to be doing right.
36:54
And, and you need to report this back into the board and executives as well.
36:57
So they understand that they can’t just tell you, hey, do this and not know why either, right.
37:02
So it’s, it’s always a two way St.
37:06
Everyone’s in it together.
37:08
We’re all in the same scene of, of the same movie.
37:10
We all have different parts, you know, let’s, let’s, let’s stick with the, you know, the, the actual vertical of the movie.
37:18
Is it a horror movie?
37:19
Is it a, is it a comedy?
37:21
You know, we don’t want somebody running around, you know, telling jokes at a funeral necessarily, unless it’s, you know, wedding crashers or something, right.
37:28
So what is our theme here, guys?
37:31
What are, what are we trying to achieve?
37:33
Let’s let’s all sing from the same sheet of music.
37:35
And you know, that’s, that’s all I can say on that.
37:39
It’s, it’s the most important thing.
37:40
Otherwise, you’re just running around blind and probably doing damage.
37:44
I think that’s a good place for us to stop here, Jeff.
37:47
We’re at our time on sales late.
37:48
Doug.
37:49
That was a great way to close out this episode.
37:51
Awesome.
37:52
Awesome.
37:53
This was awesome.
37:53
Jeff, I love having you on the show.
37:55
If people want to reach out and connect with you, if they want to learn more about Pro scale partners, maybe work with you, what’s the best way for them to do that?
38:03
Yeah, my website proscalepartners.com and and my e-mail is Jeff at Pro Scale dot AI.
38:12
Can I say that again because I just messed up my website.
38:15
Oh, go ahead.
38:17
You can reach out to me at Jeff at Pro Scale dot AI and my website’s Pro Scale dot AI or hit me up on LinkedIn, Jeff Fleischer and happy to happy to talk to you and compare war stories and see how I might be able to help or my team might be able to help.
38:33
Yeah, of course.
38:33
If you didn’t catch that, no worries.
38:35
We will have it in our show notes at impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog.
38:41
So be sure to check that out, connect with Jeff and be sure to subscribe to Sales League Dog.
38:47
So not only to get this episode, but all the future episodes of Sales Lead Dog.
38:51
Jeff, again, thank you so much for coming on Sales Lead Dog and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog pack.
38:57
Thank you, Chris.
38:57
It’s an honor to be a a member of the pack.
