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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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Today I have Joshua Hoffman joining me from Chapter Consulting.
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Josh is a partner at Chapter Consulting.
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Josh, welcome to Sales lead Dog.
0:39
Oh, thanks so much for having me on.
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I really appreciate it.
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I’m looking forward to our conversation.
0:43
Awesome.
0:43
Josh, tell me a bit about your current role with Chapter Consulting and what you’re doing there.
0:48
Well, sure.
0:49
I, I’m a partner with Chapter Consulting.
0:50
It’s a firm of four people.
0:52
We have this really broad set of expertise areas.
0:56
My expertise tends to fit into sales, revenue outcomes, go to market marketing, you know, associated technologies with that, how to coach, develop, hire things along those lines, but almost almost always gravitating towards the sales or the operational sides of businesses.
1:14
We also have experts in oil and gas, in construction, in legal, other experts in operations.
1:21
And so we have a really broad variety of offerings sitting out there that’s enabled us to work cross functionally with companies.
1:28
And at times we work together.
1:29
It’s not always just one of us sitting inside of a company.
1:32
We can go in and tag team and and help folks grow, help them deliver an outcome and become more effective.
1:37
Yeah, I think from my experience, when we come and engage with a client, they’re not usually having problems in just one area.
1:44
You may start out that way, like, hey, we need help with sales.
1:48
But when you get in there, you start peeling back the layers of the onion you find more.
1:51
Is that typical experience for you guys?
1:54
Oh, absolutely.
1:55
You know, not to sort of date myself with an old technology term, but it’s almost like things spider out.
1:59
So as soon as you begin to talk about what’s the key thing, what’s the key outcome that you’re focused on?
2:04
And you start to dive in, you realize that there’s all these other facets to what’s going on.
2:09
And you tend to branch out and you find ways to get to that root cause and make sure you’re addressing that at the same time as you’re addressing what the outcome needs to be.
2:18
Agree 100%.
2:19
Yeah, I, I see that a lot too, where there’s also a general, I don’t want to see a, a misunderstanding or maybe a lack, but they’re so focused on, hey, this is the problem in front of me that they’re not seeing the forest for the trees, you know?
2:35
And so having a team like you come in, I imagine is a pretty big benefit, a pretty big help to your customer base.
2:42
Well, we certainly hope so.
2:43
We definitely believe so.
2:44
That’s the outcomes that we’ve tried to drive.
2:46
And and you know, you’re right about having sort of myopia.
2:50
When you take a look at something, you get so laser focused on that one thing that you you can’t see what else is around you.
2:56
And having an objective observer, somebody that hasn’t really been living the problem for an extended period of time, that can make all the difference in the world.
3:04
And, and candidly, I think it helps people solve problems faster and hopefully and most of the time lower expense.
3:12
Oh yeah, big time.
3:13
Just to have that third party coming in that’s not wrapped up in the politics of the organization or maybe, you know, just have that different perspective to come in and just reframe things can help a lot.
3:25
You know, clearly those cobwebs are the the myopia’s you talked about.
3:29
Yeah, you, you can break down cultural walls at the same time.
3:32
And that makes a huge amount of difference because you, you’re not a part of that culture as much as I think we all try to become a part of cultures that we that we that we spend time with.
3:42
You do get to break those walls down.
3:44
Sometimes you get to ask questions that nobody in the room is willing to ask.
3:48
That’s right.
3:49
And that, that brings out a lot of, that’s one of my favorite things when I’m coming in, it’s like, you know what?
3:55
All right, there’s an elephant in the room.
3:57
Everyone’s pretending is not there.
3:59
Let’s talk about it.
4:02
No doubt it’s a lot.
4:04
Look, I call me, maybe I’m masochistic, but I really love that part of it.
4:10
I love seeing the look on people’s faces.
4:12
When did did he really just ask that?
4:14
Are we supposed to talk about this?
4:15
And then they feel good.
4:17
Yeah, right.
4:17
They get that group permission to to open up and things just change.
4:23
And, you know, candidly, if I go back into most of the experiences that I’ve had, it’s a lot about that has a lot to do with the kind of culture that I’ve built in, in the organizations that have been a part of is, is giving people the freedom to express themselves.
4:36
And it it helps people not only solve problems faster, but it gets people along for the journey of what it changes about the mission or the vision of the philosophy to get those things solved.
4:47
Yeah.
4:48
So you’ve got a pretty extensive career and and pretty deep experience.
4:55
When you look back over your career, kind of do some self reflection, What are the three things that you would describe as really driving the success you’ve had?
5:06
Oh, thanks, that’s a great question.
5:08
So first of all, an absolutely ruthless focus on outcomes.
5:13
Make sure that you know what the targets are, that you know how you’re going to get there, that you know what to do if something goes wrong ’cause something will, and be just embedded in the idea that you were going to get there.
5:25
The the second thing that’s really jumped out at me is, is culture.
5:29
And making sure that the culture is one where people feel that they’re a part of the vision and the mission, that they’re a part of what’s taking place.
5:38
That it’s not just about a job, That there’s this that there’s this career element to it.
5:44
And it took me a while personally to find that as well.
5:47
And there’s the developmental side of things.
5:50
And that goes not only for how I develop myself, but how I build teams that are focused and emotionally bonded to the idea of creating a, a, a developmental posture that people can always be better.
6:04
I don’t care if you’re number one or not.
6:06
There’s always an opportunity to improve.
6:08
And if people can open themselves up to that and be included, then things just change dramatically and they change faster.
6:16
Yeah.
6:16
I think one of the dangers of when you make it to the top of an org chart is complacency, that, you know, that, hey, I’m at the top.
6:26
My I, my focus needs to be down and what’s happening with my team underneath me.
6:32
How do you handle that in your career?
6:35
You know, to to not be complacent, but to be, you know, forcing yourself to continue to grow.
6:41
Yeah, well, there’s a couple things.
6:43
So first of all, I’m very goal oriented.
6:46
And for me, those goals have to be memorialized.
6:49
It’s not just about thinking, wow, I really got to go double the business.
6:53
It’s, it’s what are we going to do and by when and make sure that those things are laid out.
6:59
And also making sure that organizationally speaking, so given the leadership roles that I’ve been in, that those are shared goals and that it’s not just me sitting in a room by myself and spitting out what the target is.
7:11
It’s, it’s being collaborative not only within the team, but cross functionally and helping people build those goals together so that the art of the possible becomes something that that people are again emotionally bonded to and that they’re a part of it.
7:28
The, the second thing for me is making sure that I am always active with all parts of the organization.
7:35
And so complacency sometimes has happened for me in the past when I found myself spending too much time alone.
7:41
And so one of the things that I’ve lived by is this concept of with like I’ve got to be with the sales people, with the sales leader, with the product team, with the marketing team, with the channel team, with the customers, with the partners in the channel.
7:56
And the more I do that, the more it becomes a group think, which is what I want it to be.
8:02
I don’t want it to just be me.
8:04
And complacency is no longer allowed in that scenario because now you’ve got this force of nature that is that is pushing things along.
8:14
You know, those are the two top things that come to mind for me.
8:17
That’s really leading from the front as well.
8:18
Because your team’s going to see you doing that, right?
8:21
And they’re going to be thinking, well, man, I got it to be doing the same thing.
8:23
Josh is really out there.
8:24
He’s going after it.
8:26
I need to elevate myself, right.
8:29
Yeah.
8:29
Oh, absolutely.
8:30
You got to walk the walk, right?
8:31
It’s you can’t just say it’s going to be true.
8:34
People have to know that you’re in the fight with them.
8:37
And, you know, that’s a lot of what has led me to some of the coaching methodologies that I use, which is not just about let me drag into a team room and let’s talk one-on-one for a few minutes.
8:46
It’s also about experiential coaching and spending time in the field with people or on the phones, depending on what kind of role they’re in and getting to, to diagnose what’s going on.
8:57
And candidly speaking, a lot of that has to do with the questions that I ask more than the feedback that I deliver.
9:03
And if I can get people to be introspective and uncover on their own, then things that again, it goes faster, it goes better.
9:12
And people believe that they’re a part of something that’s bigger that they want to continue to be a part of.
9:18
They’re like, I want to grow here.
9:20
Like maybe I get to do that with my team later.
9:23
It’s, it’s again, it’s a lot of fun.
9:25
I, I happen to love what I do, which is always the advice that I give.
9:29
Do what you love and it, it certainly helps with that passionate approach.
9:35
Did you leave school wanting to go into sales?
9:38
Oh boy.
9:38
I’m not going to get too deep into the weeds here, but I’ll, I’ll tell you this.
9:42
First of all, my first try at college, I flunked out.
9:45
So I was a terrible student and I found myself in this myriad of different jobs and my first three sales jobs were awful.
9:56
I sold copiers, I was in a boiler room selling carpet cleaning.
10:01
I sold insurance door to door and I actually gave up on sales for a period of time.
10:07
And I give a lot of credit to Dell.
10:11
I spent 14 years at Dell and, and the vast, vast majority of that in a quota carrying role or a quota carrying leadership role.
10:17
And the, the chance that I had to make a change from working in manufacturing, which is where I was at the time, to going back into sales.
10:26
It was a life changer for me.
10:28
It, it really brought out what I think I knew that I had, but I had failed that just miserably three times in a row.
10:38
The, the stories that I could tell, especially with the door to door insurance selling are how not to treat people living in a boiler room environment.
10:46
Game changer.
10:47
Yeah, I that those are like the horror stories of, of selling, right?
10:52
You hit the like the, the trifecta of sales suckiness.
10:58
You looked out like encyclopedia, someone who cyclopedia is door to door.
11:02
Lucky, lucky me, right.
11:03
So I, you know, I, there’s nothing like, you know, being out in the middle of rural Texas, not knowing whether you’re going to get tea and cookies or a gun.
11:12
Like you go up to somebody’s door.
11:14
And I got both It it was definitely a unique experience.
11:18
It teaches you a lot.
11:19
It teaches you a lot about relatability and how you spend time with people.
11:24
You have to be able to address everybody in that circumstance.
11:28
And you also learn a lot about hearing no.
11:31
Oh yeah.
11:32
So coming from that experience, you get into Dell, you really Start learning sales like the right way.
11:38
You really Start learning what drove your path into sales leadership from being quota carrying frontline salesperson to now I want to be a leader.
11:48
Yeah, I’m going to be a little self deprecating here again.
11:51
So I had this this great fortune.
11:52
So I joined sales part time out of manufacturing.
11:55
They asked, you know, who wants to go to sales?
11:57
The phones are ringing off the hook.
11:58
It’s 1992 and myself and this other guy, Rick.
12:03
So I’ll never forget we get selected out of the group to go in.
12:05
I’m only four hours a day in sales.
12:07
And then I walked back across the street to manufacturing, you know, doing test tech work and in those four hours and said with all humility, I’d moved towards the top of the floor.
12:18
I was outselling a lot of people that were working and, and you know, with all apologies to any folks that I beat up on the charts back then, but the as I graduated through the sales process and moved from what was a super Q at the time of Dell, you could have gotten anybody on the phone, which was a little bit of insanity, but a good learning opportunity into the world of selling to consumers, small business.
12:40
I was an acquisition Rep I and trying to hunt down and close the largest deals out there.
12:46
I had it in my head that I was the best at everything.
12:50
And this was a, a lesson about arrogance.
12:53
So I said I want to be a leader.
12:55
I signed up.
12:56
You know, they said we need to hire more sales managers.
12:58
Who wants to be one?
12:59
I raised my hand.
13:00
I go through the interview process and the message to me was, Josh, you are way too arrogant.
13:04
You’re an ***.
13:06
You cannot be a leader.
13:09
You’re you’re going to go in and you’re going to tell people what to do.
13:12
You’re not going to show them anything.
13:14
You’re not going to teach them.
13:15
They’re not going to develop.
13:15
They’re going to hate you.
13:17
I got all kinds of messages out of that process.
13:19
And they said, but look, you’re, you’re, you’re really good at what you do.
13:22
And I, I think I just won Rep of the year.
13:25
And so, you know, I, I was a, again with humility, a very good salesperson.
13:31
And they said, if you really want to do this, you have to go lead a training class.
13:37
You have to go build a curriculum.
13:40
You have to walk them through what at the time I think was a two week training class.
13:44
You have to bring them out onto the floor.
13:46
You’ve got to keep the people, so you’ve got to make sure that they remain a part of the organization, and then maybe then you can go and actually lead A-Team.
13:55
And it took roughly 3 months to get through that process.
13:58
And that was my first foray into leadership.
14:03
What was important about that is, first of all, having to go do that work.
14:07
I can’t imagine anything more humbling.
14:10
It was really hard for me.
14:11
I’m not a writer, I am not a curriculum oriented person.
14:15
I was not process oriented at the time and I sure as heck had no empathy for people that were not successful, that didn’t lead their life the way that I LED it, the way that I LED my own and the lessons that I learned out of that.
14:32
I deployed, I think fairly quickly.
14:34
I know that I failed along the way as well.
14:36
So it wasn’t like instant success, but it, it brought me into that leadership realm and the lessons just continued from there.
14:43
And I was much more open to it.
14:44
So I’m grateful to the people that told me what an *** I was because it, it taught me some things about who to be and how to be.
14:52
It changed me forever.
14:53
And no, looking back at that point, what a great, as I’ve listened to, I’m thinking like, what a gift that was to you to, to, to force you in that way because that really it’s, it’s sink or swim, right?
15:07
Like you’ve got to figure this out.
15:10
And that’s not an easy thing to do.
15:12
Like I, I’m just saying like that had to be really hard.
15:16
And because now you totally have to shift perspective to succeed in this.
15:20
You have to get in the minds of your students and, and what’s really going to help them.
15:24
Yeah.
15:25
And, and, you know, we were, we were hiring, you know, folks that were, you know, fresh out of school, they didn’t have a lot of sales experience.
15:32
They sure hadn’t experienced what it’s like to be coached well, nor did I had the experience to actually coach somebody well.
15:38
And we were learning together and having to figure out how do you help somebody make the steps from, I don’t know this to I’m good at it.
15:48
I is, is a really interesting thing to go learn.
15:52
And it, it, it gave me this, this knowledge that spending time side by side with people can be a, a life altering maneuver for both of you.
16:04
And that, that ability to go coach people and help them become better and help them learn on their own.
16:09
Back to that being introspective, learning how to have them ask themselves the questions or have me having to ask them directly.
16:16
You know, what do you think went well on that call?
16:18
You know, what would you do differently next time?
16:20
What would you change?
16:21
What would you keep?
16:23
And so some of those are sort of cliche coaching phrases, but if you’re genuine about it and you really show them that you care and leading with compassion is something that’s really important to me, not only for myself, but for the people that I hire.
16:37
If you can get them into that mode, then now the world has opened up.
16:42
Now everybody’s open to a new idea of maybe I can do this differently.
16:46
Maybe there is a different experience.
16:48
I and you know, back then, and this is probably 1996 by then, if I had to just take a guess, maybe somewhere around there, I the, the idea that they could listen to themselves on a call.
17:00
And then we started doing team coaching, play a call for everybody in the room, give them a scorecard.
17:04
What’s the feedback?
17:06
And now, now we’ve got a team that is not just focused on their own success, they’re there to help everybody.
17:12
And we had a good time doing it.
17:13
It wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t like this arduous, you know, this, this painful proctology exam.
17:19
It was, you know, let’s find a way to do this together.
17:22
And now you have people that are directly learning from each other and there’s some learning via osmosis that takes place.
17:28
Yeah, I bet.
17:30
So it sounds like you’ve mentioned this a couple of times.
17:32
It sounds like that’s become a bedrock of, you know, like the foundation of the work that you do when you’re working with your clients.
17:39
This, this leading from the front, side by side with your team, really creating that culture, that environment for success.
17:46
Yeah, it, it, it, it has made a difference not only with clients, but also with customers and partners.
17:51
And it, it, it, it almost boils down to a couple of really simple ideas.
17:56
One is the ability to ask questions that get people to open up and also making sure that when you’re in the room or on video with people that they believe that you’re a part of the the solution, that you’re not just there at poke and prod that we’re in it together.
18:15
And if you can package those things together, well, now you’re a team solving things together.
18:21
And the way that I phrase it to people, especially in contentious conversations, but hopefully we don’t get there, is that the problem is on the other side of the table.
18:30
We’re on the same side of the table.
18:32
What are we going to go do to solve X?
18:35
And that has opened up their minds at times say, OK, I get it.
18:41
Even though we might be physically facing each other right now, the problem’s over there.
18:45
So what are we going to do as a team to go solve it?
18:48
And that relates as much to helping a salesperson improve as it does to helping a company figure out how they’re going to get to this outcome that they’re trying to drive.
18:55
Yeah, no, that’s a great perspective, a good shift in perspective for someone that’s going through that.
19:00
That in it’s all about like to to sell.
19:04
I think you really have to be able to put yourself, you have to get outside of yourself and put yourself in the position of the customer and really understand what they’re going through and what they’re trying to do.
19:14
And so if you can’t do that yourself, you’re not, you know, as you’re getting this feedback and all that, you’re not going to be able to do it when you’re selling.
19:21
Yeah, it’s empathy at the highest level, right.
19:23
Which I think might have been one of Stephen Covey’s 7 habits.
19:25
I have to go back and reread the book Maybe.
19:27
But but it, it is having that level of empathy that, look, I’m, I’m not just going to try and walk in your shoes.
19:33
How about we get our feet in there at the same time, Like, let’s go, let’s go the entire way together.
19:38
Yeah.
19:38
Yeah.
19:38
No, I love that.
19:40
So when you’re coming into an organization that’s struggling and all that working with a sales leader there, maybe they’re brand new and their role, how do you suggest they structure like those first 9000 and 20 days from that point where like, hey, we’ve got a problem that we need to fix.
19:59
How should they be going about fixing those or addressing those core issues?
20:03
Well, you, you know, one of the first things that I tend to do, and this is by the way, whether I’m actually in an organization or working with another organization, is you’ve got to make sure that you’ve assessed the problem correctly.
20:15
There’s got to be a, a, a really deep dive diagnosis of what’s taking place.
20:22
And a lot of times people get so focused on the outcome like, Oh my gosh, I’ve got to get from 50 million to 100 million in a year.
20:29
What am I going to do to go do that?
20:31
And you ask them what the problem is and you know, they give you the standard answer.
20:35
Well, there’s not enough revenue coming in, or my salespeople aren’t selling enough, or I don’t have the right product.
20:42
Or you start to hear these really top level answers that you, you need to go about 10 clicks down before you really get to the root cause analysis.
20:53
And then you can start building up that plan and saying, what are we going to go do together to solve this?
20:58
Because typically it’s not just one thing.
21:01
If salespeople aren’t selling enough, it’s not just one reason.
21:05
It’s not that they’re all bad salespeople or that they’re selling the wrong product or they have the wrong value proposition.
21:10
It’s usually a combination of things and it becomes an experiential learning process that allows us to sit down and actually get to those root causes.
21:20
And then once you’ve begun to build up the plan of, OK, let’s figure out how do we prioritize those root causes?
21:25
What’s the ROI that we’re going to develop against solving these things?
21:28
What are the outcomes that we’re going to get?
21:30
How do you derive, you know, what, what the, what the real mission is here?
21:34
And then you get to working on the, the tactics.
21:37
But the tactics are so much further down the road.
21:40
And not that, that has to be a long time.
21:41
You know, we’ve gotten through that in a day before, but it it does require us to go back and, and, and really step through it together.
21:50
And then things start to really come through.
21:53
Now you’re starting to build a plant.
21:54
What are these different things we’re going to go do?
21:56
And the excitement starts happening.
21:58
People get gravitated into that mission, into the vision, and they say, all right, now I know how we’re going to get from A to B Let’s go do it.
22:06
Yeah, that’s the thing that I see that a lot.
22:11
I think a lot of us do that, you know, when you get to a certain level of an organization where they, you hear that go, hey, we’re going to go from 50 to 100 million.
22:20
The question is, OK, great.
22:21
That stake has been put in the ground.
22:24
Now what you know it it’s you’ve got to now put a plan in place of, of execution to actually, you know, drive towards that goal.
22:36
Do you have a top three list of things that you see that are keeping people from from executing against you know that that forward progress those goals?
22:47
You know, I, I, I, I do and let me try and formulate an answer on that.
22:51
But what something that you said, you know, really made me think that, you know, these are questions that you can answer as well as I do when I think about the expertise that impeller brings to the table.
23:00
And, and, and when you’re working through somebody’s challenges and how they’re working through their CRM, you know, like one of those simple things that people say is, oh, my salespeople aren’t entering all the right information.
23:11
You know, it’s not because they’re lazy or don’t care, It’s because you have to work through, well, what’s the, what’s the, what are the reasons that we’re trying to do this?
23:20
What’s the right process to get there?
23:22
How do you get people to care?
23:23
What are the outcomes that it’s going to deliver?
23:25
Are they going to get paid more if they do this the right way?
23:29
And the answer should be yes, by the way.
23:31
So it should be better for their paycheck and salespeople should be coin operated.
23:36
And so there, there’s, you know, there there’s a yeah, there’s a, there’s a great opportunity to bring that together.
23:41
And so I was just thinking about about how much you must see the same thing.
23:46
And in the spirit of that, have also completely forgotten what your question was.
23:50
So I got so hung up and thinking about your expertise that I, I forgot what you asked.
23:54
I’m sorry.
23:55
I, I don’t mind just spending your time thinking about, you know, my world.
23:58
It’s fine.
24:00
The three things, what are the three?
24:01
So like, I’ll give you an example.
24:03
When I with the things that we see, the big problems we see over and over again with CRM, it’s data.
24:10
You know, our data sucks.
24:12
There are a lot of reasons why your data sucks.
24:16
Process issues, you know that people think like, hey, we need a new CRM or CRM sucks.
24:23
It’s not the technology most times.
24:25
Occasionally it is, but usually it’s the stuff around the technology that’s the problem.
24:30
Yeah, that’s where you got to, like you were saying, you got to peel back the onion.
24:33
You got to get 10 clicks down to really understand what the problem is.
24:39
So what are your, like, top three things that that you encounter when you’re working with clients that you see over and over again?
24:49
Yeah.
24:49
So there’s a handful of things that come to mind.
24:52
So first of all, is the sales team motivated to sell the way that they’re supposed to sell?
24:59
Do they have the right process in place?
25:02
And so I’m a believer that you combine behaviors and analytics to get to the right outcomes.
25:06
And you’ve got to have a, a, a real strong sense around what’s taking place.
25:12
The, the, the value proposition is something that comes up over and over and over again that, that the, either the sales people haven’t figured out how to deliver the right value proposition or the company hasn’t figured out what their value proposition really is.
25:28
And so the articulation of it is not shining through all the way from marketing based communications to what the sales people are talking about with their customers.
25:39
And I know you asked for three, but I’m going to add in 1/4 that it when I think about the, the will of the salespeople as one side of it, the skill is the other and being able to make sure that the salespeople have the the right mindset to be strong at asking the right questions to uncover the opportunity.
25:58
I’m really simple when it comes to opportunity creation.
26:01
Like I’m a band guy and you’ve got to be able to ask questions that not only capture what bands or band light is depending on what you’re going after, but the why behind it.
26:12
You know, what’s what’s really important here?
26:14
They’re like, Oh, I’ve got a need.
26:16
I’ve got to get more secure.
26:18
Great.
26:18
Everybody needs to have more security.
26:20
That’s super easy to figure out.
26:22
Tell me why that’s on your mind.
26:24
Tell me what what’s important to you?
26:25
Tell me what your board is saying.
26:27
Tell me what you see as gaps in your technology.
26:29
Tell me you know why you see this as an opportunity and get get the customer to go deeper into it the same way that you would ask a sales Rep.
26:39
Tell me you know what you what went well on that call and what didn’t.
26:42
You’ve got to get people to be introspective and to really understand what’s going on.
26:48
Those are some of the top things that come to mind.
26:49
I could probably come up with a longer list too.
26:51
No, it’s OK.
26:53
No, it’s funny, especially I talk about the why all the time.
26:57
Like if we don’t understand the why behind things, like how do we know we’re even addressing the problems?
27:04
You know, it’s like like, Oh yeah, we give you a new CRM.
27:07
I’ve seen this many times when we come into a client and they’re like, hey, our CRM sucks, we need your help.
27:13
And we talked to them about, you know, OK, what was your original intent behind CRM?
27:18
What we were trying to achieve?
27:19
What’s the outcome?
27:20
It’s about the outcome.
27:22
That’s what people want.
27:23
They don’t care about CRM technology.
27:25
They’re getting CRM because they want a specific outcome.
27:29
And a lot of times they don’t even have a clear vision of what that outcome is.
27:32
They want.
27:33
They just know, hey, we’re in sales, we need to CRM.
27:36
But if you don’t have that clear definition on that outcome, you’re never going to get where you need to be.
27:43
And so part of like my mission is to make sure they have clarity around that outcome.
27:48
Do you see that same thing in your world when you’re working with clients that like, hey, we have to formulate that.
27:53
Why?
27:53
What is that that milestone or that deliverable that that vision that we need to achieve?
27:59
Oh, absolutely.
27:59
And you know, look, I think I think about what you work through on a day on a daily basis with this and it’s easy to relate those things together.
28:08
You know, if you’re talking about trying to build up what your data set looks like.
28:13
And so the why’s should be somewhat obviously like we want to grow more, we want to grow faster, we need predictive analytics.
28:18
We need something that’s going to help us understand the pace of the opportunity flow.
28:22
We need something that’s going to give us better forecasting capability.
28:27
You, you, you, you need to, you need to be able to have almost a well, not almost.
28:31
You need to have a cross functional approach for that.
28:34
It’s not just what are the sales leadership, what’s the sales leadership team thinking or what the sales reps are thinking.
28:40
What is sales OPS looking at or Rev OPS?
28:42
How are they perceiving this to, to be an opportunity for them?
28:47
What is the product team need to get out of this?
28:49
What do, what does the marketing team need to understand about lead efficacy, how demand Gen.
28:55
is flowing into the system or conversion ratios?
28:57
It it’s not just about the literal behavior that you’re trying to drive at the end of the day in your case, it’s also about the analytics that you’re getting out of it and the process to get there to make sure that that all of these needs are met because you could solve things in two seconds to make things easier for sales reps, get rid of the CRM.
29:13
So just, you know, just keep it on paper.
29:15
But boy, is that not the right answer.
29:17
I mean, you know, you, you’ve got to do something different to drive the right kind of outcomes and it requires a cross functional approach.
29:25
And so the answer is yes, I see that all the time and I try and get, you know, back to how I lead organizations when I’m a part of them.
29:34
I try and get as many people along for that journey as possible, solicit as much feedback as humanly possible, make sure that that feedback is getting aggregated in a way that that creates shareability behind it and then gain agreement.
29:49
And, and once you get to agreement, you know, back to the other steps we were talking about before, if you have agreement and you have a diagnosis of a problem, coming up with a plan is 10 times easier.
30:01
Now, that’s not the hard part anymore.
30:04
The hard part may be coming, the execution and what you do when things don’t go the way that you plan, which is an inevitability in anything like this.
30:12
It’s not all going to go perfectly.
30:14
We just got to figure out what’s going to go wrong and where or be willing to learn on the fly and be willing to sort of intellectually take that in and say, all right, this didn’t work.
30:24
Where are we going next?
30:26
And, you know, that plays out extremely well with organizations that are not horrifyingly risk averse.
30:36
There’s all different process you have to go through.
30:38
And they’re saying, well, sure, you can take the risk if you’re 100% sure it’s going to work, which I’ve heard before.
30:43
As a leader, I’m like, that’s not really a risk anymore, is it?
30:46
So let’s talk about what else are we going to do?
30:49
Yeah.
30:49
You know, the key there is, and you’ve said this many times, it’s the analytics that I see that a lot too, where people are implementing stuff, but they’re measuring nothing.
30:58
And so how do you know if it’s working or not if you’re not measuring it?
31:01
And then how do you know, hey, well, let’s change and try something new.
31:05
You know, you have no way, no insight into really what’s the correct path.
31:09
You might as well just spin until you get dizzy and fall down.
31:12
It’s OK.
31:12
That’s the direction I’m going.
31:15
It’s really hard for, you know, the two of the last public speaking engagements that I did, one was centered around the relationship between Rev OPS and the CRO and the other one was centered around the relationship between sales enablement and the CRO.
31:28
But what happened in both of those conversations?
31:30
And I, I tend to not be a talking head at the front of the room.
31:33
I like to be interactive and I sort of go out into the space and gather feedback.
31:39
What happened in all that is that the the different constituencies didn’t understand what was important to the other people that they were working with and they didn’t understand how to communicate that importance once they did understand it.
31:54
And they didn’t understand how to collaborate to make sure that they were sharing in the vision of what was important.
32:00
And so, you know, putting a finer point on it, one of the major points that I brought up at the sales enablement conference that I spoke at was if you’re not sitting down with your CRO with the head of Rev OPS and agreeing on how you’re going to measure the efficacy of the programs that you’re putting in place, you should not be in front of them positioning a new program.
32:19
You have to be not only prepared with that answer, you should have pre worked that answer with them to have agreement so that when you walk into that room and there’s six people sitting around the table saying, should we go do this program or not?
32:30
You’ve already got people that are saying, yeah, this makes sense.
32:35
We’re going to get better outcomes.
32:36
We’re going to have better measurement.
32:37
We’re going to have more loyalty.
32:39
We’re going to have better development.
32:40
We’re going to have all these things and we can measure it all.
32:43
And I, you know, there’s, you know, the old cliche phrase, if you what is it?
32:47
If you can’t measure it or you can’t manage it, you can’t measure it.
32:50
You know, there’s, there’s lots of opportunity inside that big time CRM.
32:55
Do you love it or do you hate it?
32:57
Both.
32:58
So that’s the real answer.
33:01
That’s a very real answer.
33:03
So look, I, I’ve had this, this fortunate opportunity to have led Rev OPS a few times in my career as an actual job.
33:14
And I’ve certainly had the opportunity to lead it as part of the functions that I’ve been, you know, leading and working with over the years.
33:21
And I know that there is no way to be truly successful at delivering the outcomes, especially at scale, without having the right data, the right analytics, the right measurement techniques, the right information.
33:34
There’s no way to be successful without having this in place.
33:37
And the CRM is really the only pathway to get all that into one place and have a talk to other pieces of information in the business.
33:44
Creating that that that data lake sitting out there where you can begin to create alignment and where you can begin to create collaboration of analytics to get the real picture out of things.
33:57
It has to be there.
33:59
The the other part of the love is that when you can get your sales team, your customer success team, your tech team, whoever’s working, your marketing team, all these different groups are working inside the serum.
34:10
It’s not just about sales.
34:12
If you can get all of these teams working together effectively inside of their, that well-rounded view of what’s taking place in the business and where your greatest opportunities lie becomes incredibly evident.
34:24
Now.
34:25
There is a hate part to it, and the hate part to it has almost always come up with, has always come up around how do I make sure that I’m not overtaxing anybody that’s working in the system with the amount of information that they have to provide?
34:39
How do I make it easy for them?
34:41
How do I make it not feel like a painful process?
34:44
How do I help them see the benefits of getting this information in Wow?
34:48
If I enter in my forecast information, I’m going to get help.
34:52
Or if I enter it in the right way, I’m going to have this this opportunity to make sure that I’m managing my business well and I’m going to be better for it.
35:02
Or if I’m talking to leaders or people that want to become leaders, I talked to them about the secret weapon of being able to forecast accurately.
35:09
If you can actually predict the future, you will be so valuable to an organization that they will want you there forever.
35:18
There’s all these different levels of with them inside of the CRM and if you can unlock those, then it’s great.
35:24
But the hate part comes when you’ve got an organization that’s that’s mired down in the misery of I am doing administrative minutiae work over and over and over again and I get no benefit out of it.
35:35
I don’t know who looks at it.
35:36
I don’t know if anybody cares and got to get out of that hole.
35:42
But that’s again, it’s not just about the sales team.
35:44
It’s about having a collaborative effort.
35:46
But my love far outweighs the hate.
35:49
And I if you, if you were sitting inside of any organization that I’ve LED or anyone that I’ve consulted with, the same thing is going to come up, which is you’ve got to have experts like Chris on the team that are, are helping, you know, so it’s true.
36:04
I mean, if you don’t have evangelism for this that’s constant inside the organization that is continuously displaying and sharing what the value is that’s coming out of it, then you’re missing out.
36:20
If you don’t have the right process, you’re missing out.
36:23
Whatever great results you might be getting, and they might be growing by 100% a year.
36:27
Well, guess what?
36:28
The answer should be 150% because you’re missing on where you’re missing.
36:33
You know, you can see it.
36:35
And you know, something as simple as you know, where is the sales cycle time on these deals or why are more deals falling out at stage 4 than stage six?
36:45
If you can fix those things and start to map that into your process and say, wait, if I focus on stage 4 instead of stage six, then I’m going to be 15% better instead of 5% better.
36:56
Yes.
36:56
And now how are you going to go solve stage 4 to stage 5 exactly?
37:01
Yeah, like you have to have that detail in there.
37:02
And then that’s, that’s going back to like, how do you get the sales people to actually use it?
37:07
It’s like, hey, we can you can increase my commissions by 15 to 20%.
37:13
I’m in.
37:14
It’s like, Oh yeah, that’s like, heck yeah.
37:17
I’m immediately I’m aligned with you now.
37:19
And I’m a, you know, it’s got to be there to help sell more.
37:23
That’s why people get CRM.
37:24
They want the outcome.
37:25
I need to be able to sell more.
37:27
I want to make my customers happier.
37:29
I want everyone jobs to be easier.
37:32
It’s not because I want to drag this 10,000 LB anchor behind me because, you know, Joe needs to have his beautiful charts on Monday.
37:40
Yeah, right.
37:41
I mean that that’s part of it though, too, don’t get me wrong.
37:43
So we got to produce the right data.
37:45
That can be the only reason, you know.
37:47
No, I, I mean, this, this, this, this light bulb goes off.
37:51
Like, I’ll, I’ll tell salespeople, look, it is not my favorite thing in the world to read your notes.
37:55
That is not really why I was put on this earth.
37:59
But what I am here to do is to help you sell more, sell faster, sell better, be more complete in your sale, have better customer relationships, better outcomes, better customer experience, better partner relationships.
38:11
I’m here to help deliver all of those things.
38:14
And the more information we have about what’s going well and what’s not, then the more I’m gonna be able to be helpful at either growing the organization or growing you or growing the customer and making them more effective.
38:27
It changes things and you know, don’t get me wrong again, the individual point, finer points about what we need to work on.
38:33
They certainly differ from org to org, person to person, mission to mission.
38:37
But at the end of the day, they are there has to be a reason that it’s going to help you get to those outcomes.
38:43
Yep, 100%.
38:45
Josh, we’re at our time here on sales lead dog.
38:47
I really appreciate you coming on here.
38:49
This, this is one of those conversations that I seriously want.
38:51
I don’t want to hit the stop button on.
38:53
Let’s keep this baby going.
38:56
Maybe we’ll have to bring you back for Part 2.
38:58
Well, you’re making me blush, first of all, but I, I couldn’t agree more.
39:04
You know, forget that we’re actually recording something right now.
39:07
I would have loved this dialogue if it was just you and I have a one-on-one about, Hey, what are we going to do to go make X better?
39:12
Like this is the kind of dialogue that that helps helps me grow.
39:16
And so I’m really appreciative of the time and the opportunity to be on here.
39:20
And, you know, hopefully I, it’ll help some other people along the way.
39:23
That’s certainly my mission in this.
39:24
That’s awesome.
39:25
If people want to reach out and learn, you know, connect with you, Josh, sure, they want to learn more about chapter consulting.
39:30
What’s the best way for them to do that?
39:32
You know, the easiest way is always LinkedIn.
39:34
So I’m on there every day.
39:36
Maybe it might go 2 days between my diving into messaging and I’m easy to find on there.
39:42
So it’s Joshua Hoffman.
39:43
It’s not going to be challenging for anybody to find me.
39:46
Yep.
39:46
And if you’re looking for that, check out our show notes.
39:49
You get the show notes at impellercrm.com/ Sales Lead Dog where you’ll get not only this episode, but all our hundred plus episodes of Sales Lead Dog.
39:58
So be sure to check that out.
40:00
Subscribe so you get all our future episodes as well.
40:03
Josh, thanks again for coming on Sales Lead Dog and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog pack.
40:09
Love it.
40:09
Thanks for having me on here.
40:10
I really appreciate it.
40:13
As we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog, be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media, 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 Lead Dog.
40:34
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