Leadership is NOT a Title – Matt Schatz

Watch or listen to this episode:

Transcript:

Wed, Jun 15, 2022

SUMMARY KEYWORDS 
people , crm , sales , rackspace , important , sales team , deal , technology , understand , individual contributors , company , role , super , inputs , absolutely , types , forecasting , hear , mentor , manager

Speakers
Christopher Smith, Matt Schatz

Intro
Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert, Christopher Smith, talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack. Listen to find out how the best of the best achieve success with their team and CRM technology. And remember, unless you are the lead dog, the view never changes.

Christopher Smith
Welcome to Sales Lead Dog. Today, we have joining us, Matt Schatz. Matt, welcome to Sales Lead Dog.

Matt Schatz
Great. Thanks so much for having me, Chris.

Christopher Smith
I’m excited to have you here on the show, Matt. Matt, you’re the Chief Revenue Officer at Trulioo. Can you tell us about your current role in your company?

Matt Schatz
Yeah, so Trulioo, we are a digital identity verification platform, we operate the largest, most extensive network for identity verification data providers, basically, were able to verify over 5 billion individuals around the globe and over 300 million companies.

Christopher Smith
You guys are tackling a huge problem. I mean, anyone that’s working in financial services, identity verification is such a painful problem. Because you do have to go and typically try to stitch together some kind of solution. You guys are solving that problem.

Matt Schatz
Exactly- a lot of our prospects, you know, they’re doing manual processes trying to go and manually verify people, when they’re trying to onboard people around the globe, trying to go and manage different contracts. It’s kind of go and find the data. Where can they go and find it? And for us, it’s a one simple, one stop shop, where we’re able to go and help our customers, very quickly, verify people so that they can complete the onboarding process very quickly, don’t have that drop off. And also what I really love, you know, part of the mission of our company is financial inclusion, and the fact that we’re able to reach 5 billion people, when you think about recent immigrants or emerging economies, something that I’m really proud of the global reach that we have, and how that allows people to participate in the digital economy.

Christopher Smith
Oh, yeah. And you’re allowing companies that have good solutions to go into those markets and help improve their economies and provide services otherwise they couldn’t get because of this inability to validate identity.

Matt Schatz
You got it? Absolutely. My house to harden?

Christopher Smith
Well, it’s great to have you here on the show, Matt, what are the three things looking back over your career that have really contributed to your success?

Matt Schatz
Yeah, I’d say one thing that I’m proud of, is always trying to be really generous with my time. It’s not about just the deal, it’s not about the customers got a number or the salesperson in here has got a number on top of their head. You’re trying to be really generous. That’s something that I’ve taught at an early age, and then something I carried forward. Another one is, I’m passionate about what I do, I’ve really tried to go and find my passion. And ever since I’ve done that at an early age at Rackspace, and think I’m really passionate about the types of companies that I work for. And there’s a very specific type of company that I want to work for, you know, life’s really short and I want to be, we’re going to have a good time. And I want to, I want to feel good about what I’m doing. And when I do that, I typically have done pretty well. And so that passion is really important. And I would say that the other thing, you know, outside of that is, there’s a real science behind sales and really understanding inputs to be able to go and drive growth. It’s not necessarily about just the number achieved, but it’s about how you go and do it. And that’s been a longtime process for me to go to really understand the underlying inputs that drive repeatable growth. And that’s something that I really focused on as well. But a broad range of things across the board.

Christopher Smith
Yeah, I can feel your passion, just talking. I can just get that from you. That’s terrific. How’d you get your start in sales?

Matt Schatz
I was an eighth grade social studies teacher when I left university, and I had a couple of buddies in San Antonio, the service company called scimitar networks, early, early, early stages, a couple of them and one of the founders, Pat Condon reached out to me and said, hey, we’d really love for you to go and join this company rocks change, and they were called Rackspace. And so I said, Pat, what would I do for teachers? Well, of course you do sales and I gotta admit, I was a little sad about this, you know, I got my master’s degree in education and I’m gonna be a dirty salesperson. And remember, famously Pat said listen to your selling these kids on why they need to go in there and social studies, you already know how to go and sell. So once you go and come over and work with some good friends, and we’ll build something great and the rest is history.

Christopher Smith
Oh, that’s amazing that is really, really cool. And everybody has heard the name Rackspace before so that that’s tremendous. Looking back to those early days in sales, what do you wish you had been taught? That would have made your life easier?

Matt Schatz
You’re going back to those inputs, you know, it’s not necessarily about the output, you know, it’s about the input. And as I met you, like I was probably a little embarrassed when I went into sales, you know, kind of have that mystery. perception of what sales is, and it’s an honorable profession and done right, you bring a lot of value. I don’t think that I really realized that early on, about what you know how important of a role that is. And, you know, the, the other one I would also kind of go back to and say is it said, you know, when you’re, when, when you’re generous with your time, when you help your prospects, regardless of if you got a solution or not for them, that just comes back to you tenfold? And so those are probably a few of the things that I’ve learned along the way that I wish I went in there day one understanding.

Christopher Smith
That’s great. What role did mentorship have in your advancement through your sales career?

Matt Schatz
Yeah, it was huge. Being able to have the freedom to have honest and transparent conversations with mentors was, was absolutely critical. For me early on, it was playing Rhiness, who was the SVP of sales of Rackspace, who’s like a father figure to me, and being able to go and trust him and take his advice, even when I didn’t agree with it. But he’s a heck of a lot smarter than I’ll ever be. People will go and listen to him. It was it was really important session when we were still young and really inexperienced, and trying to go and grow that. And it was okay not to know everything. And that was that was really important. There’s a good friend of mine from Rackspace, facing Lorenzo Gomez wrote an incredible book called this launcher diaries. And part of what he writes about is the importance of having your own board of directors, the only people that you’re accountable to, that you can go and have those conversations with, and I couldn’t agree more.

Christopher Smith
Yeah. What’s your best advice for someone who’s thinking about a sales career?

Matt Schatz
Yeah, one is, it is honorable, it is also really, really, hard. I think sometimes you have this kind of conception of like, oh, I’m gonna go play a bunch of golf and, you know, jazz hands certain things and try to go and you know, almost swindle customers, like that’s not sales. Sales, you’re providing a really valuable service, it is really hard. And it’s a lot more than just fast talking, I understand the product, you know, that type of thing. There’s a real art form to it. And it’s hard. It takes years and years and years to even begin to master it. And you’ll never fully master it. Yeah, yeah.

Christopher Smith
But think back again, over those years as in sales, what’s your craziest sales story you can share with us?

Matt Schatz
I would say early on at Rackspace, there’s just a couple of us. And so, there was no training. And my training literally existed, have a morning, listening to the other sales rep and you couldn’t conference and so I could only hear one side of the conversation. And so, I remember George Steinberg and I was listening to him. And after a couple of calls, they say, wow, keymap, you sound like you’re ready. And I was not ready. I didn’t understand what this guy didn’t understand anything. So, the first call that I get. First question I get was, we’d like to know if you offered firewalls this back in early 2000. And Rackspace was yet to offer firewalls. I had no idea what a firewall was. But I remember I did get a tour of the data center. And they really focused on this whole fire suppression system that we had in their data center. And so rather than ask about what he meant, rather than which I should have, I wanted to go and show this person. I was super knowledgeable. And so, I remember, put the person on hold my look over to George, Hey, George, we offer firewalls and courses, for firewalls. And I got back on the phone. I said, Sir, I just want you to know, we don’t offer firewalls, but the likelihood that our data center catches on fire is absolutely minimum. You don’t need a firewall here we got this amazing fire suppression system. Like I said, Are you serious? Absolutely. I’m serious. It’s not going to catch on fire?

Christopher Smith
Not at all. We’re good to go. Tell me about your transition into sales leadership, what drove you down that path?

Matt Schatz
Um, you know, I would like to think that I was acting in that role before I had it. And, and, you know, I think that I probably have a little bit of revisionist history, but I felt like I was acting in a leadership capacity. And one of the things that my mentor, Clint, always impressed upon all of us not as leadership is not a title. Leadership is a way of behavior. Leadership is a choice that you make every day when you walk through those doors. And so I tried to act as a leader tried to go on and help others trying to go and put the company’s needs in the customer’s needs, you know, before myself. I think those types of attributes tended to have a lot of people asking me a lot of questions about how I was doing certain things, and it got this kind of natural evolvement into an official manager title.

Christopher Smith
Yeah. Was that a hard transition for you to make?

Matt Schatz
Yeah, I think that there’s absolutely I think one of the lessons that I learned and for new sales managers, especially if you’ve come up through the ranks as an individual contributor, and then moved over, is you don’t have to have all the answers. And what I realized to be honest, people would come to me and say, Matt, what do I do with this situation? Sure, you’ve run into it 100 times before? Yeah, yeah, you got to say this, do this, and this in the email, blah, blah, blah. And they come back 20 minutes later, and it worked great. And you know, and I’d go home and pat myself on the back isn’t Rackspace, lucky to have me, I’m a great manager, we wouldn’t gotten that deal. The next day, that person got three other questions, and then another sales rep got another question. And I keep on telling them the right answers. And then the line gets longer and longer of all these people that have questions and what I realized I was doing a real disservice to them. And to people got the answers, you might have to go and draw it out. But, you know, learning the ability to not have to have all the answers, even if you know the right thing to go and do but drawing it out of them. Hey, what do you think we should do? You know, they tell you a stupid answer. You say, Well, that’s an interesting idea. What’s another reason why people don’t approach it? And eventually they’ll come to that right answer. And you don’t take the ownership. You don’t say yes to that exact, you know, thing, because if it doesn’t work out, they’re going to come back and say, well, Martin told me to do this, and it didn’t work out. Say, hey, why don’t you go ahead and try that report back and let you know how it does. All of a sudden, that line for questions gets a lot shorter and shorter, and people have got a lot of confidence in themselves. And you don’t have to go to you nearly as much for those kind of more mundane types of things. And so I think as a, as a young leader, I wanted to have all the answers, I wanted to tell people what to do, I wanted to be right. And what I realized was that was not being a good manager, it was about drawing the ideas out of my people, that made me a much better manager,

Christopher Smith
I can relate to that, as listening to you talk. I did the exact same thing. And it took me a while to realize I had created a giant bottleneck around myself. And the productivity of my team was going way down, because they were constantly coming to me. And yeah, so I could, that’s a great lesson. For you know, looking back again, when you made that transition, what advice would you give to someone who’s considering making that same transition?

Matt Schatz
I think one of the things I hear a lot, Chris is from individual contributors who want to go into management, this is not on a great mentor. And because of a great mentor, I think I’m going to be a great manager. And, and look, that’s a that’s a step in the right direction. But be a great manager, it’s a lot more than just simply being a great mentor. And so I think that sometimes that is a disconnect. You know, when I’m looking for your what is accuracy, you know, who are my folks that are that are delivering an accurate forecasts that are delivering an accurate commit, that have repeatable processes that we can go in and really teach the lesson, don’t get surprised, you know, you get the you get the rough that says, I can’t believe it, the decision makers out of the offense, you know, my champion said it was gonna get signed, and then it’s the middle of August, and they didn’t ask, you know, who’s on vacation, those types of things. So the lack of surprises, the consistency, the accuracy, as well as the mentorship as well are some of those certain things. But, you know, you talk to somebody that runs a terrible CRM, you know, none of the stages are correct, you know, completely inaccurate, you know, both can be good, you know, or you know, or below, but especially the ones that, you know, get hit a forecast, maybe they’re overseas, overseas, but they have no idea why you can’t trust the CRM in terms of their data. And then they say, but man, I really could mentor it, you know, and I just started to go and think about that that person in charge of eight other individuals, and I got to multiply that problem by eight years is a lot more than that. So it’s another really, really tight business on your own, that is repeatable, as well as being that great mentor that are the things that I say, you got to really focus on.

Christopher Smith
Thinking back when you when you came in, to truly do in your current role, what were just the first things you did, you know, think back over those first 90 days, what did that look like? How did you structure those first 90 days?

Matt Schatz
You know, what is I really wanted to go and get to know people as individuals like and it’s a lot easier to do when you’re face to face versus in the times that we’re at. But that was something that was that was really important. Yeah, really understanding what motivates by people, what they really go and get excited about. You’re finding their why you had to borrow from Simon Sinek right there. But that’s super important. And then the next one to me that I fully focused on and continued focus on is building the model. Although to these to this growth has been exceptional. It didn’t really have that repeatable model. Yeah. How many opportunities should each SDR be producing? How many opportunities should each AAE be producing? What is the conversion rate? What’s the average sales? Like? How much time does it actually take to be able to go and take a deal from discovery to close one and really start to go and build that model? So you can go and get that model for growth? And you started really measuring the inputs? Rather than did we hit our number or not? And that, to me is a lot about unlocking the growth potential and having that model that everybody can go in and buy into. So that was the first 90 days it was really a lot about establishing what that model looks like.

Christopher Smith
What are the things you want to avoid in those first 90 days in a new leadership role?

Matt Schatz
This comes from my previous boss, the CEO of WP Engine Heather Gruner, but it’s Have a seek to understand mentality, it’s very easy to walk in, say, well, why are you doing it this way, or how come the you know, and all this and, and start making a lot of judgments before you actually have all the information. And so having that understanding that like, whatever the organization’s done, there’s a reason why they’ve done it, maybe it’s not the best reason maybe have served them a purpose, you know, a while ago, maybe it’s no longer serving the purpose or so forth, with but having that seek to understand mentality, rather than coming in and trying to go and make a ton of change early on, when you don’t have all the facts and you don’t have all the data is the big thing. And then the other one is going back to bring the ideas out of all the people that you’re working with, you don’t have to go and come in and have all the ideas bring, you know, get people’s input in it, get people buying in. And then the other thing I think is also really important is treat that patient, you know, what are you trying to go on accomplish and making sure that people really understand the overall vision that you’re trying to go and create?

Christopher Smith
How do you create alignment towards the company’s strategic goals among your sales team?

Matt Schatz
You’re making? Sure, one is making sure that I understand the strategic goals, you know, first off, and that was part of their you’re early on? Is it working with our CEO and the CFO and CEO? Oh, really understanding? Why are we trying to go into these certain things, and it starts with me making sure that I’ve got a really great understanding, and then spending a lot of time about how every individual plays into those strategic goals and how important their roles are, and what are they doing to go and, you know, and get there in making sure that every motion that we’ve got is for those particular strategic goals, like it’s super important, but you know, especially even like, you know, our junior STRS, and so forth, like, you know, they’re coming in as a tough job, and you hear a lot of nose, you know, over and over and over. Yeah, and, and making sure that they understand like the how important you know what they’re doing is and that alignment, that’s, that’s super important. Never assume that people understand, or people get it really, we’re all we’re all CROs chief repetition officers, you got to repeat, repeat, repeat?

Christopher Smith
How do you create rapport? Or how did you go about creating rapport with the other members of the executive team that truly, you know…

Matt Schatz
I’m a people person, I want to get to know people. And that was super important to me. Yeah, there’s a, there’s a term that I really don’t like. And a term is headcount to be I think about as people count that we’re not just hiring above the network entirely, we’re hiring the entire person. And so getting to know you know, getting to know the people and being able to go and find something to be able to go and relate to. And also understand our executive team is relatively new, and really understanding what drove them to the company and what they see as the opportunity what gets them excited. And there was a lot of alignment there. But I think it’s, you know, especially like over zoom, it’s really easy just to like jump in meetings and get right to the point that you would never do like in face to face, you know, you get into a conference room, you know, back when we used to people going to them, there’s always a little bit of time to kind of get to know each other, and so forth. And you gotta really structure your time on these zoom calls to allow for a little bit of that, but it’s also going to be natural, it can’t be forced. But as I say, I, I want to work with people that I love and trust, I don’t need to work with the smartest people in the world, although I do work with some very smart people. But I want to work with people I love and trust and part of that also that trusted, you know, and love and get to know them and then also being accountable and doing what you say so that people can trust you. That’s, that’s super important.

Christopher Smith
I’m a big believer that a leader is only as good as his team. What’s your strategy for building your team?

Matt Schatz
Yeah, I’m really lucky. It’s really I inherited an amazing team. But you’re absolutely right, you’re only as good as your team. So one is that you got to have an incredibly high bar when you’re bringing people on your team. You know, it’s like your general patent on the way in and maybe Mother Teresa on the way out. But she’s got to have an incredibly high bar. And one of the first things that we changed is that we really made our hiring process really intense. And you know, from you know, the number of people that people talk to the presentation that needs to be done beforehand. We want to make people feel like they’re really heard when they when they come in. And that’s something that’s super important. Another one is being really transparent. What are the real issues in the company making sure that Yeah, I think about it, I don’t want to see that, that the white somebody’s eyes on their first day, like, Oh, I didn’t realize that you didn’t have this, or I didn’t realize that these processes weren’t in place is super important. And then the other one has spent a lot of time about being very transparent and direct with where you see people in your organization growing within that organization, and being very direct in terms of what they need to accomplish to be able to go and get there. And I think part of the failures of my part early on in my career is that I wasn’t direct with people. You know, I kind of I think about where I wanted to go but I didn’t want to beat them down and I didn’t want to hurt their morale and so I wasn’t nearly as directors I should have been. And that’s not fair to people. I fundamentally believe, you know, you’re the old adage people joined because of company and leave because of their manager. And, and part of that, you know, is said, if, if people are growing and people are learning in their career, and they’re getting better, they’re gonna stay, and we’re gonna give everything that you got. But in order people go and do that they need to know from you where you currently see them and where they need to be able to go and get to make sure that nobody’s guessing about that, right?

Christopher Smith
What do you look for in your team, where it’s, you see, hey, it’s time for you to consider a sales leadership role?

Matt Schatz
Well, I’m looking for those people, you know, as I say, going back to like, who’s generous with their time who’s doing that, that mentorship, but also, who’s right, who’s running a really tight business. And then what I’m really interested in so why, you know, some people just think it’s the natural progression. And as we all know, you know, your top salespeople don’t necessarily need to make your, you know, your top managers. And that can be, you know, really, you know, it can be devastating for people, when they get out of a role, and they just weren’t prepared for it. I’m going to give them a lot of opportunities, also, they’re going to make sure that they were ready, I don’t need to run every forecast meeting, I can have these people go and run the forecast be able to go and get their insights. I love taking the company challenges and issues that we’re facing and taking them through high potential individuals and say, Hey, here’s one of the issues that we’re dealing with, how would you be able to go and tackle this and then try to go in, and show them a little bit about what to do what’s like on the, on the other side of the glass and give them some experience and open that up? You know, and in engaging with them in that way.

Christopher Smith
Thinking back over your entire career, can you tell me about the attributes of the most successful person you ever hired? What successful…

Matt Schatz
There’s like some people that it doesn’t matter what the quota is, they’re just gonna hit it, like I got a cheaper piece like I have always love that. I had breakfast the other morning with one of these people as laughing about when we used to work together, I said, I should have tripled your quota, you would have still hit like, you would have figured out a way to be able to go in and into it. They also, you know, they always do what’s right for the customer. Like they never tried to go and get one over on the customer, they always do what’s right. And that means, I mean, some of the less than what they thought maybe walking away from a deal when it just doesn’t feel right. That’s been, you know, fantastic. And then the other thing is, they put the customer and then the company first like they you ever hear this, like, well, you know, Matt, I you know, I know that the company needs this do I know it’s the right thing to do, but I want to hold on to it cause I’m gonna get paid more if I go and close it next quarter, you know, those types of conversations, you just, you never, you never hear you can trust them, you don’t have to go look over the shoulder. And you know, they’re, they’re honorable people, they have high moral character, you’re proud to have your brand associated with them. Those are those are the, I’m gonna say that, in general, there’s attributes. And the other thing too is that, in general, these people never have to tell you how smart they are. You realize how smart they are. And by the quality of the questions that they ask. And those are the ones that you’re really blown away from?

Christopher Smith
Do you have personal success habits, things you do every day?

Matt Schatz
Yeah, one of the things for me is I start off every day, and I write down the four or five or 10 things or sometimes 20 things I need to go and accomplish that day. And I literally tick the box every day that gets so crazy during the day, as we all know that if I don’t do that, things get away from me. And then I go home. And I feel like I haven’t accomplished something. Which is which is super important. Another one is I try to go and carve off time for different individual contributors. I don’t talk to on a regular basis, and I just ping them and just see how they’re doing. And that always that makes me feel, you know, really good. Yeah, this sounds a little bit cheesy, but I tried to go and practice one random act of kindness every single day, which is super important. And then the other one is that, yeah, I make sure twice a day, once a day in the morning to my girls to go and tell him how much I love them. And then I tried to go and text my wife or call my wife tell her how much I love her. And that and how important they are in my life for them to allow me what I do and the support that they give me because we’re all in this together. And that part is super important to me.

Christopher Smith
That’s awesome. Rejection or failure is always a big part of being sales. It just goes hand in hand with success. Do you remember the deal that you’ve lost that hurt the most?

Matt Schatz
Yeah, I do like I absolutely do have I was working at the Bizarre Voice years ago and run the Australian team. We got a really big deal and we lost it. We screwed it up. Quite frankly, we messed up. And yeah, that was still hurts. Chris, I didn’t really want to think that last Friday afternoon, I’m in a good mood, I bring me down. But, um, you know, I think that part of, we should have won the deal. And we screwed it up. And I think that, you know, I think back about the time, we tried to go and make all the excuses about what was outside of our control, so that we didn’t have to go and really own it. And that was our first point, that probably got us even more angry, because I think quite frankly, deep down, we all knew that we ended up, it was our own, it was our it was we didn’t get out of our own way, really. So, I think that took me a long time ago, a year or two to like, kind of really digested like, you know, and try to go in and look at it from outside, you know, outside the emotion of it, so forth. But I learned a lot from I’ve kind of learned more about from that one deal than any of the other deals that we actually won, because it did sting and I had to, I grew up a little bit and put my, my big person pants on and, and try to be able to go and learn. But I think you know, a lot of times, people get sensitive, you gotta have some thick skin, you can’t take things personally. And the best folks out there are going to go and look back and say, okay, hindsight being 2020, what could I have done differently. And when I have seen from 99.99% of the opportunities that I’ve either personally lost, or one of the members of my team loss, when you can be objective, there’s a learning time there. And what scares me too is when I hear reps say that I did absolutely everything right, everything perfect. And it was a well qualified offer. Normally, it wasn’t even a well qualified offer. That’s why they lost. And there’s nothing that I would have done differently. And like that happens, so rare that that really scares me. But I love it when a rep says Now screw the pooch on this one, you know, you know, I should never be pursuing this, I should have disqualified this in the first 10 minutes or I should have done this better like love those folks. Because that that willingness to go and be better today than we were yesterday, drive so much success. And those are the types of sales reps and sales leaders that I love working with.

Christopher Smith
Let’s transition the topic a little bit CRM, do you love it? Or do you hate it?

Matt Schatz
Love it, absolutely love it early on in my career, I told you I absolutely hated that I didn’t get it. But now, that’s my mission control, where I go every morning to be able to understand where we’re going. And it helps me with inputs, helps me forecasting healthy, think about future quarters, helps me to understand where I can help them product for marketing. Without that I would be completely and totally lost. If I if I didn’t have that.

Christopher Smith
Why is forecasting so hard for so many companies when they have CRM?

Matt Schatz
You I think that they still allow a lot of, in my experience, I’ve seen a lot of junior reps, that they don’t have a lot of science behind forecasting, it’s just kind of wonder, would you I think it’s gonna go into this, you’re gonna get a lot of the kick the can Well, if it’s not this month, I’ll kick it over to, you know, to next month or so forth. So, they don’t have the good sales methodology that people need to consistently follow and understand the real stages in terms of where they are. So, they go more on gut feel they got the half years, yeah, this, this prospect, they really liked me. So, I think that this was going to go so there’s a there’s a level of inaccuracy in terms of the stages that the half years that people go and get, rather than a real, meticulous methodology that people need to be able to go and follow.

Christopher Smith
What’s been your biggest struggle when it comes to CRM technology, and its role in supporting the sales process?

Matt Schatz
Um, yeah, I would say, at one point, it was adoption. But yeah, you can eliminate that by saying your CRM is a law. Yeah, if it’s not in the CRM, it does not exist. So, when it comes to rules of engagement, when it does, yeah, first time that somebody, you know, maybe loses a deal for an ROP issue or something like that happens and you go right, and they want to bring up an email, or they want to show you a phone call you like non board right to the CRM, you kind of eliminate those issues. So, I think that needs to be the letter of the law. I think other times, you know, it’s, it’s making sure that you got a CRM that can be flexible, if you’re a sales process, you have your focus on all those things are going to change. And your CRM needs to be able to go and adapt to that. Sometimes I’ve seen, you know, administrators of CRMs, that it’s kind of like their baby, and they don’t think it’ll make any more changes and so forth. So, you got to you got to constantly reevaluate how you’re utilizing your CRM and better ways to be able to go and do it. It’s not a set it and forget it. And I think too often, it becomes a set it and forget it type of mentality.

Christopher Smith
Yeah. Have you ever experienced a CRM implementation that failed or fell short of expectations? Is it typically…

Matt Schatz
In my previous job, I actually, we sold a CRM for the architect engineering and construction and so we saw a lot of failed implementations there. And it was the two reasons were adoption. And once again, they weren’t going to be the letter of the law or another priority came up. And it’s very hard what’s going on passionate about CRM, it’s very hard for me to go and think about something that is that has greater importance than a great CRM implementation. And so, I think that as an organization, you got to be aligned that this is incredibly important. It’s like one of the most important systems that you’re going to be able to go and put into place. So, you got to have that understanding from the top down, you know that the CEO is going to go and beat his or her hand on the desk and say, we will get this implemented. And that’s super important. And then it becomes a letter of the law after that.

Christopher Smith
When you talk to your sales team about CRM, and you’ve mentioned, you know, What’s your why before, What’s your why when it comes to CRM,

Matt Schatz
From an individual sales rep. Maybe they can go and get them better. Like, it’s not about like, you know, I’ll take the I’ll take what they put in, but it’s not about them trying to go and show me or other sales leaders or, you know, the CFO, how we’re doing, it’s about them having this amazing understanding about their business and giving them tremendous insight, you know, and so a lot of times, you know, for my CRM administrators, it’s about looking into the CRM, and what is the data that we can help enable our sales team to be able to utilize, when would you get that, you know, flow of information, where it’s not just one way, but you put an accurate data, I can give you a really amazing insight back, like, you know, things like, Hey, what’s your average sales cycle, you know, okay, for all the different people, and you can start comparing why this person have this average sales cycle versus this one, and is the shorter sales cycle actually better and, you know, for your average deal, Cibola, maybe it’s like your drop offering that you got like a 40%, close rate until you hit you know, whatever the number is, you have an average sales cycle of 70 days, but, and 130 days, your, you know, your close rate goes on 5%, or 2%, or something like that, and being able to go and get that knowledge. So, when they’re forecasting the deal, that’s 220 days out, like you kind of have a much better idea, you know, every deal, I think a lot of reps, you know, forget this, and every deal has an expiration date, every deal is like a carton of milk, and being able to go and have that type of data. I love conversion rates, you know, I got a, you know, maybe inbound opportunities, outbound opportunities, who’s doing great on a particular way, let’s get them to do some training about why they’re doing that, because we were able to go and get that in the sales and see, into the sales team to, for them to go and get to that level of knowledge. So, it’s not just you need to do this, because it’s an exercise in helping me or the CFO or the CEO, CEO or the board. That’s, yeah, that’s not usually not, of course, I like it. But the real purpose is how am I going to make you smarter and allow you to go and close more deals. And when you go and get that, and people are generally we’ve used it a whole lot more.

Christopher Smith
I couldn’t have said it better myself, I mean, that you nailed it that at fundamentally, if CRM is not enabling your sales team, you fail, it’s a failed implementation, and nothing else matters. So now, that’s awesome. What can those that are in the technology, leadership roles do better to support the sales team?

Matt Schatz
There’s a lot of ways to be able to go, you know, with this one, yes, interesting, I was just talking to a team that I’m going to be hiring as consultants. And that is that there is a lot of great technology that you can go invest in, for your sales team to go and make them more efficient, and people go and get better. But at the end of the day, you’re not going to automate that human conversation. And I think that, you know, I see a lot of folks that they want to go and invest in all this really great technologies. But you know, 10 on the phone and having a conversation, there’s nothing that’s going to be able to go and replace that. And so, you know, part of it is, you know, enable, you know, interesting, great technology out there. Say there’s lot of great ones, but don’t try to go on automate the role, you’re never going to be able to go and do that. And especially, you know, like I’m gonna sound really old and starkly. But yeah, like back in my day, you know, you picked up the phone and you made calls and, and ethically still need to be able to go and do that I consistently see much higher conversion rates, we actually get people on the phone now, technology enable who to go and call us and technology to enable some of the email communication and that type of thing. That’s reinforcement, to make people make sure people don’t get scared of actually just getting on the call and dialing and getting you’re getting in touch with people. That’s super important. And then the other thing that I would say, this is my own personal opinion, but I’ve always wanted to invest in technology when we’ve tried it, and that technology can accelerate whatever we’re trying to go and do. I’ve never been a fan of saying we haven’t seen the success but we want to go into investments technology because we can so I’ve always said show me that if we can go and do it and technology will help it sell pretty, I’ll always be open to that. But the ones that we’ve never done this in there’s no way for us to go and do it a reaction the other thing, but let’s go by the technology to be able to go and help us, as always robocopy running through the hills when it when I see that.

Christopher Smith
Yeah, I agree. And the other thing for me is when, like when I’ll get calls for people like, hey, we’ve got all kinds of problems with our sales team. So, we need CRM to help us fix those problems. And that’s where I put my hands up and say, hey, look, you know, we gotta set expectations here. Technology is not going to fix crap process. You’ve it’s people and process. You got to deal with that first. Technology is a tool. You know, it’s not a band aid. It’s not a panacea. It’s not going to solve all your problems.

Matt Schatz
Absolutely. One 100%. Yeah, absolutely. Couldn’t agree more.

Christopher Smith
Yeah. We’re coming up on our time here on sales lead dog, man, I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me. If people want to reach out connect with you. They want to find out more about Trulioo What’s the best way for them to do that?

Matt Schatz
Sure. Send me an email. It’s [email protected] trulioo.com. Or connect with me on LinkedIn. Be wonderful to hear from people and make sure I’ll get right back to you.

Christopher Smith
That’s awesome, man. Thanks again for coming on.

Matt Schatz
Sounds really great. Thanks, Chris. It was a pleasure.

Outro
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 empellorcrm.com/salesleaddog. Sales lead dog is supported by Empellor CRM, delivering objectively better CRM for business guaranteed.

 

Quotes

• “We are a digital identity verification platform. We operate the largest most expensive network for identity verification data providers. Basically, were able to verify over 5 billion individuals around the globe and over 300 million companies.” (4:45-4:57)
• “There’s a very specific type of company that I want to work for. Life’s short and I want to be able to have a good time and I want to feel good about what I’m doing. (7:00-7:09)
• “He always impressed upon all of us that leadership is not a title- Leadership is a way of behavior. Leadership is a choice that you make every day when you walk through those doors.” (13:04- 13:13)
• “Having that seek to understand mentality rather than coming in and trying to make a ton of change early on, when you don’t have all the facts and you don’t have all the data is the big thing.” (19:17-19:28)

Links

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