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.
0:27
Welcome to Sales Lead Dog.
0:28
Joining me today.
0:30
I’m very excited to have this guest here, Jeffrey Goldstein of Q Associates.
0:34
Jeff is the managing director of Q Associates.
0:38
Jeff, welcome to Sales Lead Dog.
0:40
Hey, glad to be here and happy we were able to meet last year at the Microsoft Summit conference and very happy for that introduction.
0:50
Yeah, yeah.
0:51
I’m super excited to have you on the show.
0:53
Jeff, tell me a bit about Q Associates.
0:56
Sure.
0:57
So Q Associates is a Microsoft Dynamics partner specializing in the ERP implementation of enterprise resource planning, accounting and financial systems.
1:09
And we’ve been doing it for quite a while.
1:12
We’ve been doing it since 1992.
1:14
And while we like to think that we’re very experienced, everyday we’re learning, learning new things as the industry changes.
1:22
So we’re always striving to keep up with the latest and greatest.
1:26
And we’re we’re leveraging Microsoft and riding on Microsoft’s coattail.
1:30
So as Microsoft comes out with state-of-the-art technology, you know, we’re following in their footsteps and and we try to be leaders as far as the adoption of technology for our organization so that we can provide that technology to our customers.
1:45
Yeah, and AI, especially with Microsoft Copilot, is such a hot topic right now.
1:51
How do you see that influencing what you guys are doing in the ERP space?
1:55
Oh, it has tremendous influence.
1:57
And we feel that this is a game changer, especially for, you know, Microsoft.
2:01
It’s a differentiating factor.
2:03
And our customers are constantly looking for ways to become more efficient so that they can beat their competition.
2:09
And this is one way that they can.
2:11
So AI and Microsoft Copilot is helping our customers be much more efficient and beating and staying ahead of their competition.
2:20
Yeah, I, you know, my world was CRM.
2:24
I truly feel like with what Microsoft is doing with AI, they’re redefining what CRM is going to be over the next three to five years that I think they’re actually probably going to have to come up with a new term because CRM of old just isn’t going to apply anymore.
2:43
And I imagine it’s going to be the same in the ERP space.
2:46
No, absolutely.
2:47
Because no longer you do, you have to know where things are, how to find them.
2:51
You’re just going to type in English like sentences to be able to perform your tasks.
2:56
And the system’s going to do it for you, you know, automatically.
2:59
So while back in the old days when you used to have to use green bar paper and you had to know your debits and credits and you know where where to put the numbers in the right columns.
3:08
And the systems have made it more efficient so that people didn’t need to understand their debits and credits.
3:13
Now it’s going to be even easier because, you know, the systems, you know, automatically take things and post them to the appropriate, you know, categories based on English like commands that you tell the system, which is, you know, great.
3:24
And it’s going to lead to more efficient ways to be able to enter the data, post the data and make sure that the data is accurate.
3:31
Yeah, it really is.
3:32
It’s mind boggling what they’re do.
3:34
Jeff, when you look back over your career, you’ve been doing this a long time.
3:38
What are, if you could sum it down to three things, what would those three things be that are really driven and LED to the success that you’ve achieved?
3:48
Right?
3:48
Number one, it’s the people.
3:49
So I’m only as good as the people that I have working for us, right?
3:53
So they’re the ones who make me look good.
3:55
So it’s it’s always people, you know, people first.
3:58
So we’ve been very successful at not only finding good talent, but also retaining good talent.
4:04
So we have people who’ve been with us in excess of 25 years, very close to 30 years, which is unheard of, you know, in our industry.
4:12
And, you know, we have very little, you know, turnover.
4:15
And those are the ones that are leading the way in mentoring the young people.
4:18
So it’s always getting that right mix of older senior people with experience.
4:23
And then you want the younger trendsetters who are not afraid to adopt the new technology, but to implement it based on best practices, you know, learn from the senior level, you know, people.
4:34
So the number one it it, it’s the people.
4:37
Next is, you know, working with a good vendor.
4:39
So, you know, Microsoft has been a great vendor to us that’s been responsible for our success.
4:44
If it wasn’t for, you know, following a Microsoft’s, you know, footsteps and staying ahead of the technology, we would never be where we were, you know, today.
4:52
So like 10 years ago when they were telling us, hey, listen, you need to build recurring revenue, you we need to build a cloud business.
4:59
You know, we jumped in with both feet.
5:01
We said, OK, we’re going to learn this right.
5:02
And we wanted to stay ahead of the curve and it was a good thing that we did this.
5:06
So, you know, back in the and, and for ERPERP was introduced lead into the cloud and that was, you know, basically in 2016 while the MSPs were already, you know, 3-4 years into the into the cloud business.
5:20
But you know, we started with the adoption of AB Pass, right, which ended up being, you know, Office Online and then Microsoft 365.
5:28
So we said, listen, whatever the technology is, we want to learn it.
5:32
We want to be the first to learn it so that, you know, we’re not backpedaling that we’re always ahead of the curve and not behind the curve.
5:37
So number one, it was the employees.
5:39
Number 2 is partnering, you know, with the vendor and following in their footsteps.
5:44
And then #3 it’s really the customers.
5:46
And customers are really responsible for our success.
5:50
And thank God we’ve had, you know, customers who’ve been very loyal and dedicated and have been with us for, you know, 30 years.
5:56
And we treat them like their family and we take care of them very well.
6:00
That’s tremendous.
6:01
That’s tremendous.
6:04
Thinking back to when you’re just getting started in your career, what did you want to do?
6:12
Did you have a vision that’s dramatically different from what you’re doing today?
6:16
Absolutely.
6:17
So, you know, if if I were to do it all over again, would I do it the same way?
6:21
No, I’d, you know, do it differently.
6:23
And, you know, as much as you know, you get taught to plan and you like the plan, You know, sometimes you have to follow the road and where the road takes you and opportunities will come up along your, you know, career path during, you know, during your career.
6:39
And you just got to follow the road that you think is best based on your, you know, intuition.
6:44
So where I thought I was going to be and where I started, where I ended up being, you know, we’re two different things.
6:49
So I never thought I would be a business owner and never thought I would have, you know, such a large responsibility.
6:56
But things came and presented the opportunities and I took advantage of the opportunities.
7:01
I said, you know, listen, if I don’t take advantage of this, I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life.
7:05
So I’m going to try it and if it’s successful, if it’s not, then I’ll go in a different, you know, direction.
7:10
But I didn’t grow up saying, hey, listen, I want to be a business owner.
7:13
That’s exactly what I didn’t want to be.
7:16
And, and, and one of the things that I didn’t want to get into was, you know, sales.
7:20
I always despise salespeople.
7:21
I hated salespeople.
7:22
I never wanted to be a sales person.
7:24
And very early on in the 1990s, you know, my former partner said, Jeff, you, you have to be the salesperson for our organization.
7:32
I said, I don’t want to do sales.
7:33
I hate sales.
7:34
I hate salespeople.
7:35
They go, but you’re the best at it.
7:36
So you have to do it.
7:37
So first thing I did was signed up for Adele Carnegie class and said, all right, well, if I’m going to do this, I have to learn how to do it the right way.
7:44
And, you know, the rest was history.
7:45
So it, it worked out well, worked out in our, you know, favor.
7:49
And now I, I love to sell, but I, I, I sell based on my knowledge, my experience and what I know.
7:55
And when you walk into a room and when you meet with someone, they know right away whether you’ve done this before, whether you know, whether you’re talking about just by the questions you asked.
8:03
So I don’t believe in I, although I sell, I don’t sell, right?
8:07
I, I, I don’t sell by selling, I sell by, you know, consulting with our, you know, customers.
8:13
And I, I treat them as if I say, listen, I’m going to make the same recommendation for you that I would for my own family as if it was a family business.
8:21
And that’s the recommendation I’m going to make for you.
8:23
I’m not going to recommend anything less.
8:24
I’m not going to recommend anything more.
8:26
I’m going to do for you what I would do for myself.
8:28
And people appreciate that, right?
8:30
You don’t undersell them.
8:31
You don’t oversell them.
8:32
You just sell them exactly what is right.
8:34
You make that recommendation.
8:36
How did that evolve?
8:37
I mean, were, were you always like that in terms of your approach to selling or is that something that evolved as you got more experienced in selling?
8:45
Well, listen, I, I, you know, I, I, I learned in the very old days that from the ground up, you know, so I, I used to install operating systems, I used to pull cables through ceilings.
8:56
We used to run the local area networks.
8:58
I started with Novell 211, Novell 3110.
9:02
My God, you’re taking me back a stack of, you know, floppy disks and putting them in the machine and doing it.
9:07
So pretty much everything that everybody does for our organization, I’ve done one way or another, right?
9:14
So I, I always tell people, I’ll never ask you to do anything that I haven’t already done before and that I wouldn’t do myself and that I can’t do myself.
9:21
So I’m very hands on.
9:23
And, you know, when you are hands on and you grew up and you learn things by, you know, doing implementations and, you know, sometimes unfortunately, you know, failing, but they’re learning it the right way to do it.
9:34
That experience comes across and then based on that, you know, I put myself in the place of the, you know, customer.
9:40
I say, listen, if I were the customer, whatever my expectations, what would I expect and I would do for them, what I would expect them to do for us.
9:48
Same thing.
9:49
So as you started to grow, you had to build the sales team.
9:53
What was that experience like in the early days of building your team?
9:58
It, it was very difficult, obviously.
10:00
So sales people are always great.
10:02
And typically what happens is they’re great at selling themselves, but they can’t sell anything else.
10:07
So it, it, it, it’s very difficult to, you know, to find, you know, professional sales people.
10:13
So we always found the best way to do it is to train them right.
10:15
So, you know, we take people who are, you know, competent people who are consultants, people who know the products, know the systems, know the industries, right?
10:25
And then just teach them some of the, you know, appropriate, you know, sales techniques and put them through training like I did, like Dale Carnegie.
10:33
We’ve been through Sandler training.
10:34
I’ve gone through probably almost every sales training, you know, professional program that you could ever, you know, imagine.
10:41
And I take the best from what I believe all of them and put them together to create my own, you know, sales methodology.
10:48
And listen, nobody wants to be sold, including myself.
10:51
So I don’t sell people.
10:52
You know, we like I said before, we make recommendations and we make recommendations based on our experience and we would do for them what we would expect them to do for us or for someone else to do, you know, for anyone else in the industry.
11:05
So, you know, we take the people who have the aptitude and we, we find out who those are very early on and then we train them and a lot of them come out of the marketing profession.
11:16
So we hire people to do, you know, marketing and then we have them qualifying leads and opportunities.
11:22
They’re using, you know, the Microsoft CRM system, Microsoft Dynamics 365 sales, and we find out which ones have an aptitude.
11:30
And then, you know, we have them shadow the sales people, put them through training programs and then turn them into sales people.
11:37
How long do you have them shadow to really get that depth?
11:40
Is it the same for everybody or do you base that on the individual?
11:43
It’s based on the individual.
11:44
Certain people pick it up quicker than others, right?
11:47
But it, it, it’s really, you know, learning, you know, the products, the systems and what we’re selling.
11:52
So the easiest thing for them to learn how to sell our systems that they’re currently working with and that they understand.
11:58
So one of the things that we do, Chris, is we use all of the Microsoft software in house because we’re a firm believer that, you know, if you’re going to recommend it and if you’re going to sell it, you need to know how to use it yourself.
12:09
So every piece of Microsoft, you know, software that is possible to be purchased, we purchase it when it comes out and we’ve, you know, encourage our people to, you know, learn it.
12:20
And you know, we did that when Copilot came out, we did that when, you know, CRM came out, we used it for ERP.
12:26
So every single piece of software.
12:28
And like I mentioned before, early on, you know, BPOS was it, you know, the best product?
12:33
Absolutely not.
12:33
But we knew we had to learn it, right.
12:35
And then, you know, BPOS became Office 365, became Microsoft 365.
12:39
And by the time it became Microsoft 365, all our people were very fluent, you know, in the product.
12:45
And when a client asks you, you know, what do you recommend for certain situations, they’re going to recommend what they use every day, right?
12:53
And then they’re knowledgeable and they can speak intelligently about it.
12:56
So the best thing to do is to use the software that you recommend to your clients, and that’s where you establish credibility right away.
13:04
Yeah, I think that having that depth of product knowledge is critical to establishing account or credibility as well as accountability for the recommendations you’re making, regardless of what industry or what it is you may be selling.
13:19
You have to understand the insurance and outs, the pros and cons because no product is perfect.
13:25
Everybody’s, everything has deficiencies, areas where maybe it’s not the best for the customer, maybe, you know, it might be a portion that, hey, this part’s not going to work that well.
13:35
You don’t understand the product, You’re not going to have that knowledge of where things might go wrong, right?
13:43
Absolutely.
13:44
And the only way you understand it is through experience and by using it every day.
13:47
So you learn the good, the bad and you know everything else associated with it.
13:52
And we’re honest with our customers.
13:53
We’ll tell them what the strength is of the product.
13:55
We’ll tell it where maybe it might not be so strong, but we understand, you know what the overall value is and why we’re recommending it.
14:01
And you know Microsoft has a total solution.
14:04
You know we using one integrated platform is going to be superior to everybody else.
14:09
However, if you look at each application individually and go with the best breed approach, or, you know, you may not, you know, win every, you know, every battle.
14:20
And that’s not where we’re going to win.
14:21
And we explain that, you know, the different philosophies to our customers saying, hey, do you want to go with a, you know, a fully integrated system, 1 system, you know, made by 1 software manufacturer with it, where everything works seamlessly out-of-the-box and you don’t have to do integrations.
14:36
Where do you want to go best of breed?
14:37
And they, I want the best sales module.
14:39
I want the best marketing module, I want the best field service module, I want the best customer service module.
14:45
Now you have five of the best modules in the world, but they don’t talk to each other, right?
14:50
So what’s more valuable?
14:51
What’s more valuable?
14:53
I, I am a big believer in I mean, I totally get this whole best of breed approach.
14:57
I get it, I understand it, but there is a true cost to that approach.
15:03
You know, there, those are systems that are not designed to work together, which creates a lot of headaches beyond just integration just from a getting out of the technology side of it.
15:15
You have to look at this from a, a business process flow.
15:18
When you have these disparate applications that are not designed to work together, what do you have to do from a business process perspective to now make this stuff work?
15:28
That’s to me where the real challenges and, and you know, to have a, a system that, hey, maybe it’s not 100% in every area, but if you get to 80%, that 20% can be impacted or reduced in a bunch of different ways and a lot less, a lot less of a risk than I think of the best of best of breed approach.
15:53
What are your thoughts on, you know, sales leader?
15:56
And I’m thinking about like, Hey, how should I go about this?
15:59
What’s your approach on, on that conversation you’re having with the leader?
16:03
Oh, we absolutely agree.
16:04
And we, we tell our customers and prospects if you’re looking for a best of breed, we’re not the best vendor, OK, because we work with one vendor.
16:11
We selected the best.
16:12
We work with Microsoft.
16:14
If you want one integrated, fully integrated solution, hey, we’re the partner to work with.
16:18
If you’re looking for a best of breed approach, then we’re not the best partner to work with.
16:23
And that’s simply it.
16:24
And you know, each customer prospect has their own philosophy as to whether they want one fully integrated system or they want to go best to breed.
16:31
And if they do want to go best to breed, we may not be the best vendor for them.
16:35
Yeah, yeah, I’m a big, I really try to be, you know, when I’m working with a customer that like I really, you have to be in that advisor role that look, I’m going to tell you the pros and cons of each.
16:46
I’m not going to blow smoke because ultimately I’m going to have to be accountable.
16:50
If you said, hey, Chris, we’re going to go with your recommendations, you got to be able to back it up.
16:55
No, absolutely.
16:56
And me and you’ve been doing this long enough that we want happy customers.
16:59
And you know, if if you convince someone of something that they really don’t want, they’re not going to be happy at the end of the day.
17:05
And we don’t want customers that are not happy.
17:06
So and there’s no right answer or wrong answer.
17:08
It’s just which ones are the best fit for, you know, what were the solutions that we’re providing?
17:13
So you know, we love Microsoft.
17:15
We’re a Microsoft partner for a reason.
17:17
You know, we’re 100% Microsoft focus.
17:19
We don’t sell any of their competitive, you know, solutions.
17:22
We sell some complementary solutions, but we’re 100% Microsoft.
17:27
We feel that we’re going to be the best at one solution, learn it and become the experts, and that’s it.
17:32
We’re not going to dilute ourselves.
17:34
Yeah, I think you guys have a tremendous culture.
17:36
Q Associates, can you talk to me about how you as a leader, you’ve gone about creating, establishing and continue to maintain and grow the culture you’ve been able to create?
17:46
Yeah.
17:47
Well, it’s all based on work ethic.
17:48
So nobody in the organization works harder than me.
17:50
And after 33 years, you know, I should be slowing down, but I’m actually speeding up some more than harder than I ever have in my entire life.
17:57
But, you know, I enjoy it.
17:59
I like it too much.
18:00
In fact, I was at a company event in December.
18:04
It was a holiday party.
18:05
And I sat next to one of our newer employees.
18:06
And they said, you know, Jeff, what are you doing here?
18:09
You know, you could sell your business and you could be sitting on the beach right now, you know, having a cocktail and not worrying about all this.
18:16
I said, David, do I look like the type of guy who could sit on the beach for longer than 15 minutes?
18:21
I said, your leg could be twitching, your arm would be twitching, right?
18:26
I said, listen, I’d rather be working than sitting on the beach.
18:28
I’d rather be working than playing golf.
18:30
To me, golf, playing golf is torture, right?
18:32
I’d rather be working.
18:34
At least it’s something that I’m good at.
18:35
I don’t like to do things that I’m not good at, right?
18:37
So, and that’s just the reality.
18:39
That’s what I love to do, you know, and then that that sets the culture because when people see, you know, you know, the way I work and, and the love for the business and the love of the industry and, you know, the work ethic, you know, it, it, it, it, it trickles down.
18:56
And they, they, you know, they see it and, and it’s, you know, contagious.
18:59
It’s contagious.
19:00
You know, they all want to be there.
19:01
They all want to support me.
19:02
They’re all like, Jeff, you got to slow down, Jeff, you got to slow down.
19:05
I go, there’s no time to slow down.
19:07
OK, So you know, I just got to keep going.
19:10
So they’re working hard to try to, you know, make my life easier.
19:14
And, and you know, it’s all part of being a team, right?
19:17
What do you consider to be some of the most important lessons that you’ve learned about leadership that you could share with our listeners?
19:25
Well, you lead by example, right?
19:26
So, you know, they’re watching you all the time.
19:29
While you may not know it or realize it, they’re watching your actions, how you act, what you do, how you do it.
19:35
And I tell people listen, no matter how bad things are, every day I wake up, I have to have a smile on my face.
19:39
I have to get on camera.
19:41
You know, I have to come to the office and, and I have to be in a good mood.
19:45
I can’t come into the office, say, Oh my God, what am I doing?
19:49
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
19:51
I, I can’t do this anymore.
19:52
Because that is, you know, it’s contagious.
19:55
People see that.
19:55
So it, it, it, is it, it, it’s something that the, the, the people can very easily, you know, send.
20:03
So every morning, I know every day is a different day.
20:07
And I, I get problems every single day.
20:09
I don’t know what that problem is when I wake up, when I wake up, I’ll find out what those problems are, right.
20:14
And you can’t overreact.
20:15
You have to handle it just in a very professional way, just like you would handle any other problem.
20:19
No matter how bad is may seem, it’s never as bad as you think it is.
20:23
And, you know, it took years to get to the point where you know, you, you have that sense of urge.
20:28
Urgency, but you don’t panic and you don’t overreact.
20:31
So I tell people, listen, every day I wake up, I have to have a smile on my face.
20:36
I have to be happy.
20:37
I have to love what I do.
20:38
And as bad as it may seem that day, you know, I can’t let it bother me.
20:42
Because if it bothers me, then it’s going to trickle down and it’s going to, you know, trickle down to the employees and then they’re not going to be motivated.
20:49
So I have to be excited about what I do every single day, day in and day out, regardless of, you know, what surprises I have in front of me.
20:57
Yeah, I do believe that’s a decision.
20:58
It’s a choice that you have to choice.
21:02
You have to have that choice of, of being, you know, like you said, happiness.
21:05
I call it being joyful.
21:08
It’s being appreciative of what we have, the blessings we have in our life.
21:11
And I mean, it’s so easy to get wrapped around the axle about things that are going wrong, but it that it becomes like an energy all on its own if you go down that path, you know, and, and so I’m a big believer in just like choose that that path of, you know, being joyful of being happy because it is contagious.
21:32
Fake it until you make it.
21:33
You can call it whatever you want, you know, but there’s, I think that you have to act with intention towards those, you know, that side of the equation versus the negative side.
21:43
Yeah.
21:43
And then the other thing, Chris, is I tell my employees, I say, listen, if you make a mistake, tell me, OK?
21:48
Don’t lie.
21:49
Don’t try to cover up.
21:50
The sooner you tell me, the better we can, you know, help each other, right?
21:54
So, you know, if if you make a mistake, call me, say, hey, Jeff, listen, I made a mistake.
21:58
I should have done this.
21:59
I did this, OK, help me and I’ll help them, OK.
22:04
But then when they try to cover it up or bury it or if they lie about it, that makes things worse.
22:09
And nothing gets me more upset as as at that.
22:12
So I tell people, listen, don’t lie.
22:14
If you make a mistake, come to me right away.
22:15
The sooner you come to me, the quicker we can correct it, right?
22:19
And then the other thing I tell him is the worst thing you could do was nothing.
22:22
I said, if I’m not around and you need to make a decision, make a decision whether it’s right or wrong, don’t not make a decision.
22:29
The worst thing you could do is not make a decision or freeze, right.
22:32
If a client contacts you and say I have a problem, how do I fix this?
22:37
And if you don’t know the answer and you don’t respond, that’s what the worst thing you could possibly do.
22:42
You’re better off responding and saying, I don’t know, but I’ll find out.
22:46
At least respond, at least respond, you know, And it takes a long time for people to to learn that.
22:51
And I tell people, listen, if you don’t understand, say you don’t understand, you’ll you’ll get more credibility by telling someone that you don’t understand, then sitting there shaking your head and saying, OK, I got it, I got it.
23:03
And if you don’t have it, it’s going to be worse because it’s going to escalate, right?
23:07
And at the end of the day, you’re going to end up producing a solution that’s correct.
23:10
So if you don’t understand, you’d politely say, hey, listen, can you can you say that again?
23:16
I’m not sure I have it.
23:17
There’s nothing wrong with saying that.
23:19
That’s better than developing a solution that’s not correct.
23:22
So those are some of the lessons.
23:24
And you learn that from experience, right?
23:25
Nobody wants to be the guy in the room that says, I don’t understand.
23:28
I’m stupid, right?
23:29
You know, listen, you’re only stupid if you don’t say that, right?
23:33
Oh, I agree.
23:34
Yep.
23:34
If you make a mistake, the sooner you say you make a mistake, the better it is.
23:38
The sooner we can correct that, you know, mistake and then make a decision.
23:41
Don’t freeze, don’t do nothing.
23:43
The worst thing you could do is nothing.
23:44
If you do nothing, that’s the worst thing you could possibly do.
23:47
And listen, if you make a decision and it’s wrong, at least now you learn next time you’re going to do it a different way.
23:52
That’s right.
23:53
You have to own it.
23:54
And to me, so that that at the root of what you’re talking about is making yourself vulnerable and and like, nobody’s perfect.
24:02
We all make mistakes.
24:03
Nobody has all the answers.
24:05
There’s always going to be times when the appropriate answers.
24:07
Like you said, I don’t know, but I’ll find out.
24:11
That’s making yourself vulnerable both internally and externally to the customer.
24:15
People appreciate that.
24:16
That’s all they’re asking for is like, look, don’t BS me, we’ll figure this out together.
24:21
Just don’t BS me along the way, right?
24:23
Right, right, right.
24:25
You know, I tell my, I tell my people, I say, listen, I, I always hire people that are smarter than me, right, Because that’s a smart, because you’re going to make me look smart.
24:34
And I always tell people I say, listen, the only thing I have over you is experience.
24:38
And one day when you get the experience, you’re going to be better than me.
24:40
But that’s what I want.
24:41
I want you to be better than me.
24:42
So you know, you’re younger, smarter, you know more you, you learn the technology quicker than I do.
24:48
The only thing I have is experience.
24:50
But my experience can save you a lot of time and a lot of mistakes, you know, and, and what took me 30 years to learn, you can learn that in half the time, 1/3 of the time, 1/4 of the time because I could tell you which mistakes not to make that I unfortunately made, but they were learning lessons because there was nowhere near to teach me.
25:08
So I had to teach myself, do you ever share your the failures you’ve had or the mistakes, whatever term you want to use, do you ever share those on a proactive basis with your employees?
25:20
No, But I will bring them up as examples when certain situations, you know, occur.
25:24
When I see a situation, I say, hey, listen, I’ve seen this before.
25:27
This is what’s going to happen.
25:28
Don’t.
25:29
That’s actually what I meant.
25:30
Yeah, yeah.
25:31
Don’t fall into this trap.
25:32
OK?
25:33
Let’s just let’s just cut it off right here, OK?
25:36
Because I see where this is going.
25:38
I know exactly.
25:39
I’ve seen this.
25:40
I’ve seen this movie before.
25:41
I know where we’re going.
25:43
And as much as you think that you can fix it, you can’t fix it.
25:46
Let’s just, you know, let’s just right here, I know exactly what’s going to happen.
25:50
And, you know, those are some of the things that, you know, you and I know only from, you know, experience.
25:55
You can never predict it until you’ve been through it.
25:57
And then after you’ve been through it, you say, why didn’t I see that?
26:00
I can’t believe stupid and I didn’t see that coming.
26:04
That’s, you know, I think one of the hardest things for young salespeople to learn is when to identify that, hey, this customer is not a right fit for us.
26:16
How do you tackle that as part of their learning of, of developing people in, in their, you know, to avoid that trap?
26:24
Yeah, No, listen.
26:25
And, and, and when you’re younger and when I first started out, I wanted to win every deal, right?
26:30
And you want to win every deal, but there’s some deals that you don’t want to, you know, there’s some deals you don’t want to win.
26:34
But by the same token, you don’t want to discourage people, you know, especially when they’re, you know, younger.
26:39
So sometimes I’ll tell people, I’ll say, listen, OK, if you want to go for this deal, you can go for this deal.
26:45
It may not be the best deal, but go for it.
26:48
Listen, if you don’t win it, I’m not losing any sleep over it.
26:51
So, you know, go for it.
26:53
If you think you can win it, go ahead, but don’t be nervous.
26:56
We’re not going to lose any sleep over this.
26:58
If you get it, you get it.
26:59
If you don’t, you don’t, We go on to the next thing because I know we could do it, but it may not be the best fit and it may not be worth the effort.
27:05
But if you want to prove to yourself that you can win the deal, by all means, go ahead, but don’t get discouraged if you lose it.
27:10
And then there’s other times where I say, you know, listen, this is really isn’t a great fit, but let’s focus our energy on these other opportunities.
27:17
These other opportunities are a better fit.
27:19
Even if we win this one, I I could see that this is not going to be the best fit.
27:24
Let’s just let this one slide and focus our energy on, you know, these opportunities that are a very good fit.
27:30
And you know that that’s a hard thing to learn and it’s a hard thing to teach.
27:34
And nobody wants to lose.
27:35
Everybody wants to win every single, you know, opportunity.
27:38
But at the end of the day, sometimes you learn just like we, we talked about Chris’s, there’s some opportunities that maybe aren’t the best fit, not only for you, but also for the, you know, for the customers.
27:52
How do you approach, you know, when, especially when you know, it is very tempting to like you’re saying, chase every single deal, but how do you guys gauge, again, as part of your development, you know, the the for the sales team to truly understand and evaluate what are the right deals versus the deals that maybe aren’t so much?
28:19
Is that something that’s your shadowing program when you’re trying to develop that or you know, what do you do to develop that skill set in yourself?
28:27
And we put together questionnaires so we know now the right questions to ask, you know, you know, do they have a budget?
28:34
Who’s the decision maker?
28:35
Are we speaking to the decision maker?
28:37
Is there some, some type of business reason that’s driving this other than the fact that they want to do this?
28:44
Is there an emphasis that they have to do this?
28:47
And you know, how good of a fit?
28:49
So it all comes to down to the, you know, initial questionnaires that, you know, we complete, you know, we force ourselves to complete because, you know, even when you’ve been doing it for a long time, sometimes you get a little bit sloppy and you forget to ask some, you know, questions.
29:05
Well, then when it’s down on paper and you start to look at it, then you really see whether it’s good for your.
29:10
It’s not AI love that approach.
29:12
Yeah, yeah.
29:12
And everybody listen, I, I, I just went through sales training two weeks ago and, and I learned something from it, right?
29:20
You learn something every day or you learn something that you’re not doing.
29:22
You’re like, I knew, I knew that I learned that years ago.
29:25
Why aren’t I doing that?
29:26
Right.
29:26
Exactly.
29:27
And you’re like, you know it it.
29:29
So going through refresher classes is always great because it just reinforces what you already know and forces you to be, you know, disciplined and, and, and not to take shortcuts, but to go through the structure process.
29:40
I love that you went through sales training with the rest of your team.
29:43
To me, again, that’s another example of leading from the front.
29:47
I do it and I’m the first one asking questions.
29:48
I said, and I and I have examples.
29:51
Hey, listen, you know, we had this demo.
29:52
The demo went bad, you know, we, we lost control, You know, what did we do wrong?
29:56
You know, and, and you know, we’ll bring up examples.
29:59
Tell me what we could have done differently.
30:00
What could I have done, you know, differently here to influence this, you know, situation because everybody’s been through it.
30:07
No, no presentation goes, you know, perfectly.
30:09
And sometimes you get in presentations and they go sideways, but there’s always a reason why it goes sideways and there’s always a reason or something that you could have done differently to have prevented this.
30:19
So whether it’s, you know, presenting an agenda in in, in, in advance, getting them to sign off on an agenda, you know, during the introduction saying, OK, this is what we’re going to do.
30:28
We’re going to do show, tell, show.
30:30
I’m going to explain to you exactly.
30:31
Hold your questions to the end.
30:32
We want to get through the flow.
30:34
Don’t if you interrupt us, you’re going to lose the continuity, certain things like that.
30:37
So there’s things that you can do and there’s techniques that will increase the odds of, you know, success.
30:45
And that’s what you what’s your approach for establishing goals for the sales team?
30:51
Oh, yeah.
30:51
So.
30:52
So goals are great, you know, because if, if you don’t have, you know, something to strive for, then, you know, then you’re not going to be successful.
31:01
But there’s business goals and there’s, you know, personal goals.
31:04
And I tell people, what’s a personal goal of yours?
31:06
Do you want to buy a house?
31:07
Do you want to buy a car?
31:09
Do you want something you want to go on a vacation?
31:11
Take a picture of that, put it on your desk over the computer so that you look at it every day.
31:16
So when you sit down in front of your computer and you look at that car and you go, I want that car.
31:20
I’m going to get that car.
31:21
The next deal I sell, you’re going to be motivated to it and and it works and I’ve done it for myself, right.
31:27
So, you know, we, we used to, you know, in the office, you know, have, you know, contest, not even contest, but we would say, OK, what, OK, what are you buying?
31:37
You know, when you win the next deal, I’m buying this watch, I’m buying this car, I’m buying this house, I’m going on this vacation.
31:43
It doesn’t matter what it is, but you have to be motivated.
31:46
There has to be something to drive you, you know, personally.
31:49
So we tell people, take a picture, print it out, put it on your desk over your computer so you have to look at it every day until you get it.
31:57
And you’ll be motivated to get it.
31:58
And it works.
31:59
It works.
32:00
So, you know, we encourage people to do that and we give them goals, entertainment.
32:04
Hey, listen, you know, Chris, I, I want you to sell $2,000,000.
32:08
Now, you know, worth the business.
32:10
Now can you do that?
32:11
Yeah, it might be a stretch.
32:11
So you want a goal that’s, you know, high enough to make you have to reach, but not too high so that you’ll never reach it and you won’t be successful because then you get discouraged.
32:21
So it, it’s really a difficult thing and, and you kind of have to weigh it so that it’s a, a, a stretch and you have to work to get it.
32:28
But it’s attainable ’cause if it’s not attainable, you’re going to get discouraged, right.
32:32
And, and at the end of the day, then that’s going to be a bigger, you know, problem.
32:38
So like I said, there’s business goals and personal goals, but the personal goals will drive those business goals.
32:44
Oh, yeah, Yep.
32:46
Percent on that.
32:47
Yeah.
32:47
And I tell my people, listen, you know, I, I, I, I had a guy during COVID and he actually made more money than I did, you know, based on Commission.
32:57
I was the first person to call him up and congratulate him because he worked his *** off, because during COVID there was nothing to do.
33:03
So he was working like 80 hours a week.
33:05
He made more money than I did.
33:06
And at the end of the year, when we saw how much every, how much money, they said, hey, Jeff, Jack made more money than you.
33:12
I said congratulations, That’s good for me.
33:15
It’s good for the company, and it’s great for you.
33:17
And I was the first one to call him and congratulate him, right.
33:19
Whereas most people would have, you know, thought of it the other way.
33:21
That can’t happen.
33:22
That’s absurd.
33:23
We can’t let that happen, right?
33:24
But that’s a good thing.
33:25
That’s a great thing.
33:26
That’s a great thing.
33:27
Yeah.
33:28
That’s the dream, right?
33:29
Is that all your sales people are outperforming you?
33:32
You know, to me that that’s the dream.
33:35
Yeah.
33:35
It was funny.
33:35
When I was in high school, I dated this girl, you know, and I’m sitting with her father and his his his father said, you know what, there’s only one job where you can make, you know, unlimited amount of money.
33:46
I go, what’s that?
33:47
He goes sales.
33:48
I looked at him like he’s crazy.
33:50
What is this guy?
33:53
And he was right.
33:54
He was right.
33:55
There’s there’s one job where you have unlimited salary or earning potential, and that’s sales.
34:01
And you can make as much money as you can earn or you want earned.
34:05
It’s unlimited.
34:07
It is, that’s what it’s about.
34:09
Shifting the topics a little bit.
34:11
CRM, do you love it or do you hate it?
34:14
Oh, I love it and hate it.
34:15
So here, here’s what I always say, and maybe you’ll appreciate this.
34:18
The best thing about CRM, and especially when I compare it to, you know, ERP or accounting systems, the best thing about CRM, there are no rules.
34:27
The worst thing, there are no rules.
34:29
OK, so, so you know, when we go in and implement a financial or accounting system, you know, for a client, there’s boundaries, you know, we have to conform to, you know, gap generally accepted accounting principles.
34:44
You know, there’s certain ways that things have to be done and we can guide, you know, the client in in a certain direction.
34:50
With CRM, you walk in, you say, OK, what’s your sales methodology?
34:55
We don’t really have one.
34:56
OK, well, we need to develop a sales methodology.
35:01
Can I do this?
35:02
Oh, you can do that.
35:02
Can you do this?
35:03
Yes, I could do that.
35:04
So you’re literally saying yes to everything.
35:06
So it’s very hard to get guidelines to force people into, you know, a methodology so that there’s some type of, you know, standardization.
35:15
So we have to do that.
35:16
So I always say, you know, the best thing about CRM is there are no rules, so we can do whatever you want.
35:21
The worst thing is there are no rules, so we can do whatever you want.
35:24
And no, I that’s the world I live in, Jeff.
35:26
And I tell you, there you go.
35:28
That’s where you know, with our methodology, I want to know strategically, what are you trying to do with the business?
35:34
What are you trying to do to move the needle over the next three years?
35:37
Because I’ve learned that establishes natural guard rails.
35:42
That’s our focus.
35:43
We want to drive execution on those goals.
35:46
If you’re worried about something else or looking over here, you’re distracted from what you should be focused on.
35:52
And I’ve learned that that becomes a natural filter for all the things that we require.
35:57
You know, people say, hey, we haven’t do this.
35:58
We haven’t do that unless it’s driving a strategic goal.
36:03
No, we’ll put in the backlog, but we’re not going to focus on that.
36:06
Now.
36:07
You know, that’s where you get that, that the, the rules, you know, you need some guardrails.
36:12
Otherwise it truly is the Wild West.
36:14
It never ends, right?
36:15
No, it never ends.
36:17
And I, I remember I was on a project, yeah, this is this is going back.
36:22
But they literally requests are coming out of left field all the time.
36:26
And we’re like, why are we even working on this?
36:29
This has absolutely nothing to it seemed like every week there was a new priority.
36:33
Like this is now our top priority.
36:36
So the whole team is just being whipsawed.
36:38
And we never were really moving things forward.
36:40
And, and so that’s where that evolved for, for me and for for Impeller.
36:45
Yeah.
36:45
And that’s why with, you know, CRM, they typically use more of an agile, you know, methodology.
36:50
And then when we do, you know, ERP implementations, we do more of a waterfall.
36:55
But you know, we’ve since moved to more of a hybrid approach because, you know, we try to blend the two together and we’ll move fine here.
37:02
And we blend the two together.
37:04
We, we, we got more success.
37:07
Jeff, I really appreciate you coming on this show.
37:09
We’re at our our time window here for sales lead dog.
37:12
If people want to reach out and connect with you, if they want to learn more about Q associates, what’s the best way for them to do that?
37:19
Yeah, sure.
37:19
So the best way is directly on our website.
37:22
So www.shuasoch.com, QUEUEAS, soc.com.
37:30
It’s very easy to find me.
37:32
So Jay Goldstein at qasoch.com.
37:35
I have a lot of social media publications.
37:38
I’m all over the Internet.
37:40
You can find out where in the world is Jeff pretty easily.
37:44
So if you you Googled me, you either find myself or you’ll find a Doctor Goldstein.
37:48
So either one is advantageous.
37:52
So if you didn’t catch any of that, no worries.
37:53
We have it in our show notes and you can get that at impellercrm.com/sales.
37:59
Lead Doug, get not only this episode of Sales Lead Doug, but all there are close to 150 episodes now.
38:05
So be sure to check that outreach out, connect with Jeff and Q Associates and also be sure to subscribe so you get all our future episodes.
38:13
Jeff, thank you so much for coming on the show and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog Pack.
38:19
Thank you.
38:19
Thank you for having me.
38:20
I appreciate it.
38:21
Thank you very much.
38:22
You bet.
38:22
Have a great day.
38:23
Bye.
38:26
As we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog, be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media.
38:33
Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
38:37
Watch the videos on YouTube and you can also find our episodes on our website at impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog.
38:47
The Sales Lead Dog is supported by Impeller CRM, delivering objectively better CRM for business guaranteed.
