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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 joining me for this episode of Sales Lead Dog, Mike Hadley of Nexus IT Consultants.
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Mike is the is a senior sales executive with Nexus.
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Mike, welcome to Sales Lead Dog.
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Thanks Chris.
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I appreciate it.
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Thanks for your time and and thanks for having me on.
0:45
I’m excited to talk with you.
0:47
Tell me a bit about Nexus.
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Sure.
0:50
Yeah.
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So at Nexus IT, we’re a full service IT support.
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So we can do everything from take over your full IT stack to what we call a Co managed IT situation where a company will come to us and maybe they have some gaps.
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Maybe they need help with projects, maybe they need help with networking, data, cybersecurity, things of that nature.
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Or maybe they just need help with with their help desk.
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We can fill in those gaps or we can do all of it.
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We have customers that have come to us and they’ve they’ve had a situation where sometimes like something happens with their IT guy or their IT team and they’re looking for someone to come in and, and fill those shoes.
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And we’ve done that from a from a full top to bottom IT support staff for those people.
1:43
So that’s that’s, that’s the long and short of Nexus ITI mean, there’s a bunch we can get into the weeds on.
1:48
But yeah, if I’m a business owner, what should I be thinking about these days?
1:56
What should I be worried about or looking at or considering when it comes to my IT infrastructure?
2:02
I mean, a lot of the things that we’re seeing right now, and I would, I would emphasize this just, you know, in Utah and and I’m in Utah and you’re in you’re in Colorado.
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And I don’t know if the law is necessarily in Colorado, but in Utah recently there’s been some some legislation passed where you can be held liable for having your customers information hacked.
2:25
So the company can be held liable.
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And so they need to have those those things in place.
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So you want to watch for that kind of stuff.
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We can definitely support on that.
2:35
So a lot of the things right now that we’re doing are assessments, security assessments, data breach assessments, cybersecurity awareness trainings and things of that nature.
2:43
It, it goes from just your basic like we can do some e-mail training like what are the standards for e-mail training?
2:51
Right.
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The biggest hole in any organization isn’t necessarily being hacked.
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It’s because somebody clicks on the wrong link that was an e-mail was sent to them.
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So we do e-mail trainings and so you can go start with something as simple as that to really high, high level long term assessments and, you know, getting certified in SoC 2 or different types of compliance.
3:16
And, you know, your average listener might not know what SoC 2 is, but those are just compliance standards for data security and cybersecurity.
3:23
Yeah, that’s awesome.
3:26
When you look back over your curb, Mike, what are the three things that have really led to your success?
3:37
I mean, first and foremost, you know, I think I’m driven by my family.
3:42
I mean, I’m, I’m a dad.
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I’ve, I’ve got two daughters and, and now a a son who I hold on everybody.
3:51
I’m, I’m, I’m old, I look old.
3:53
I get it.
3:53
But I have a one year old son.
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So, but I, you know, I couldn’t be more driven to provide for my family, take care of them.
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That is my #1 motivator, no matter what it is I do.
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It’s, it’s to take care of them.
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And, and a second thing I think is just, you know, I think if you’re going to be in sales, you need to be driven by money.
4:23
I mean, honestly, you need to have that drive that says, you know, success to me means I closed XY and Z deal again, that goes back to supporting your family and taking care of your family.
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That that is it what it is for me.
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It’s not necessarily like an expensive XY and Z thing.
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It’s just how do I provide the best possible way I can for my family and #3 you know, I think it’s just a matter of learning from, from failure.
4:54
I’ve certainly had my share.
4:56
I’ve been let go.
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I’ve been fired.
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And in the sales world, you know, it’s, it’s usually because you didn’t perform up to the standard of, of whatever company that you’re with, whatever standards those are.
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And, and you have to face that sometimes the greatest lessons I think are in failing.
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I think those are the best times to to reset and re re evaluate and take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror and figure out how you went wrong, where you went wrong and how you can be better.
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Yeah, I’m a big believer and you have to fall on your face.
5:30
It’s the, it’s the best learning tool out there.
5:35
I fall on my face all the time and I’ve been doing this for a really, really long time.
5:41
Still fall on my face and but I’m still growing.
5:44
That’s the way I look at it, is like, hey, I’m growing, I’m learning, I’m growing.
5:48
Yeah, absolutely.
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You have to, and you have to take the lessons from it.
5:51
You have to, you know, even if you don’t think it’s your fault, pretend that it is.
5:55
And then figure out, you know, from that standpoint, just act as if it is your fault for a second.
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Even if you don’t think it is, ’cause, you know, everybody’s got a million excuses, right?
6:04
To put those excuses aside for a second, take a look at yourself and say, OK, I could have been better.
6:11
How ’cause there’s always room for improvement, you know that.
6:15
What was your dream job as a kid?
6:19
Well, I had several.
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I was going to be a professional soccer player that that didn’t pan out.
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I don’t know why.
6:24
I guess my knees were shot by the time I was 20 something.
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I wanted to be a an artist when I was, you know, maybe 8 years old or something.
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I think there.
6:35
Yeah, there is a painting hanging above my shoulder that I did in high school, you know, and, and really when I got to about 1718 years old, I was much more interested in becoming a sports medicine doctor.
6:50
I was taking some pre college classes in high school to, to go down that path.
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And I, I’m still fascinated by the subject of, of that and, and, you know, the human body and what’s capable and you know how to be more fit, even though I could be more fit as we sit here.
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But what, how’d you get into sales?
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What’s the story there?
7:15
Sure.
7:17
So back to the high school days.
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I, I graduate high school.
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I’m, I’m, you know, 18 years old.
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I’m, I’m trying to figure out what I wanted to do.
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Meanwhile, I’ve always worked for my, my dad’s construction company, you know, summers and, you know, during, during the time from I was 12 until until then.
7:38
And I, I started going full time working for my dad’s construction company.
7:43
And then I went to, I signed up for some classes at the Community College here to, to start going down that path of the sports medicine stuff.
7:54
And I was sitting in my first semester of college and I thought, man, I’m, I’m losing money right now.
8:02
I’m losing money because I’m sitting here and not working for my dad’s company at 18 years old.
8:08
And I can’t remember how much he paid me, but it was a lot for me at the time.
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Oh, yeah, probably, you know, at the now, you know, saying $15.00 an hour doesn’t sound like much, but when I was, that’s gold back then.
8:20
Exactly.
8:22
So I was losing money and I thought, and I, you know, I think I’m just going to go to work for my dad.
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And my brothers did.
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And they were, you know, they were doing fine.
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My old two oldest brothers were working for my dad’s company.
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And so I thought, all right, well, I guess this is my career path.
8:38
I’m going to go into construction.
8:41
I always thought I’d just, you know, eventually run his company.
8:46
Smash cut to the girl I was dating, you know, in my 20s, early 20s.
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We were talking about getting married.
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Well, she had got a full ride scholarship to UNLV on a music scholarship.
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So I figured, all right, we’ll go do four years in, in, in Las Vegas and I’ll figure out a way to support us.
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And, and, you know, so I just went to work down there.
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So I’m, I’m 8, you know, I’m a kid, 20, whatever years old.
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I’m running around trying to find this job.
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I find a job and it’s basically I’m just a runner for some law firms down down in Vegas, just running around, delivering stuff, running across town, delivering stuff.
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And I meet this guy who drove to me at the time, really nice car and he always looked sharp and he always had, you know, just confidence.
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And he was, he was also really just, you know, engaging and, and had all the charisma.
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And I looked up to this guy immediately and he was the guy who was responsible.
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He had sold this contract to these law firms that hired then runners like me.
10:02
So I had gone to work for this company and he was the guy who’d sold that contract, How I Met him.
10:07
So I kind of got to know him a bit and I finally went to who was my boss at the time, not at the law firm boss, but of that company.
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And I said, well, I want to do what John does.
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She said we don’t have any sales experience.
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And I was like, all right, well, how do I get some?
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She was like, oh, you know, hang in there.
10:28
Just keep doing a good job and, you know, we’ll figure out someplace at some point.
10:32
I was impatient, and so I started looking around for sales jobs so as to get myself some experience.
10:40
And I found a job selling jewelry at a jewelry store in Vegas, which that’s a whole other story.
10:47
Like there’s so many weird stories about working for.
10:50
Yeah.
10:52
So this family jewelry company hired me in Vegas.
10:55
I worked for them for a little while and then we all remember 911 happened and they, they started shutting down everything at the jewelry store.
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Like no more overtime, no more work.
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And you know, the only way to make it in, in jewelry cells is to be at the store all the time.
11:13
All the time.
11:14
Yep.
11:15
So they, they were reducing everybody’s hours and all this stuff.
11:19
And and so I now I had maybe a year and a half worth of sales experience under my belt.
11:25
And I called my old boss back and I said, I’ve got some sales experience now you want to talk?
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And she said, OK, sure.
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So she, she hired me.
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She didn’t hire me right away as sales, but she put me in a spot that was better and on a path to learn to get into, into sales.
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Meanwhile, back back home in Utah, my dad sells his construction company.
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My brothers have to go find other other work.
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And I didn’t really want to work construction for anybody else’s construction company.
12:00
So I I eventually find find myself in in a sales role or the company was called Ikon.
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IKON, they don’t exist anymore.
12:12
Yeah, yeah.
12:15
And so I find myself in a sales role down there.
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I was, I was selling production print.
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And then they had a they had a print room there.
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And then I got kind of recruited into selling the on the copier side.
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So I started selling the copier.
12:32
I was thinking you were going to go there.
12:33
Yeah.
12:34
Yeah.
12:34
Yep, Yep.
12:35
And that’s what a great training ground to learn how to sell selling copiers.
12:39
One of my best friends, that’s how he started.
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And it’s like you just have to hustle.
12:44
Yeah.
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And he would tell me how he would picked, like, the biggest skyscrapers in town, and he would go up to the top floor and start working his way down.
12:55
But he would have to jump floors to stay away from security because, you know, people would call on him like, hey, there’s a guy soliciting here.
13:02
So he would work out, you know, how to skip floors but still cover the whole building and the whole time trying to stay ahead of building security.
13:10
Oh, yeah.
13:10
It’s hilarious how much you know, and that.
13:12
I mean, you know, if anybody has read Rich Dad, poor dad, you’re always thinking, oh, I’m going to go sell copiers and then I’m going to be, you know, Robert.
13:20
Robert Kiyosaki.
13:22
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:24
No, it’s it.
13:25
But it’s a great training ground to learn.
13:27
You got to hustle and always be selling.
13:30
You know, it’s like, and you eat what you kill.
13:34
Yep.
13:34
But no one’s going to hand it to you.
13:35
You got to go out and earn it.
13:37
Yeah.
13:37
Yeah.
13:37
It was a great lesson.
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And I was there for years.
13:40
I was actually with that company for 10 years and I, I really learned a lot and, you know, still have, you know, even today, I have a lot to learn.
13:49
But it was a great start to, to my sales career.
13:53
And like I said, at that point, I really didn’t have any other, you know, options.
13:58
I didn’t have construction in the back pocket.
14:00
And I’d already been, you know, in this role for X amount of years.
14:04
So here I am, 20 plus whatever years later, still in sales.
14:09
Yeah.
14:09
That’s awesome.
14:10
I love it.
14:12
What are the key takeaways, the big lessons that you learned that you’re still leveraging today?
14:19
You know, I mean, I guess from that experience, you mean.
14:22
Yes.
14:24
You know, I think I think the biggest thing is, is really what I learned is there’s a lot of strategies for sales.
14:30
There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of different people with a lot of different strategies.
14:34
And I think that there’s value to to each one and, and different ones.
14:38
I think the biggest thing I learned is that, you know, not one set of strategies works for every single person.
14:48
When I started my sales career, I would say I was probably very, what’s the word?
14:57
I’m looking for it, you know, like direct and, and hard hitting and trying to close hard, you know, and I, I, I have never liked that side of cells.
15:08
I think eventually I learned that if you’re doing your job, at least this is my opinion, Chris, if you’re doing your job well, hard closes are never really necessary.
15:19
You know, if you’re if you’re doing your job well and explaining, you know, XY and Z and hitting all the all the buttons, a hard close is almost really not that necessary.
15:29
I would say 90 plus percent of the time.
15:33
I agree.
15:33
And I don’t yeah.
15:34
And I don’t like it anyway.
15:35
So I don’t really do it.
15:37
And selling to me, selling anything meaningful, very hard to do, you know, to be that that type of heavy-handed pushy, you know, trying to back someone into a corner like they have no other option.
15:53
Yeah, to me, it’s also a very short term relationship when you’re if that’s how you’re selling.
15:59
Yeah, No, IIA 100% agree with you on that.
16:04
You know, and in, in, in Salt Lake, you know, in this town that, you know, in Utah, your reputation really means a lot around here and, and you know, follows you around, You know, so the, the fact that I don’t use those type of tactics, you know, the here’s a pen press hard third copies yours kind of stuff.
16:24
You know, I, you know, I don’t, I don’t use those type of tactics.
16:29
I don’t use the, the brain math and all the you know, there’s man, I, I learned this one.
16:35
I can’t remember if I can’t remember what it was called, but it was this this tactic that you used of questioning and it was sort of this manipulative mind came to get people into a place where you could kind of push them in.
16:49
Now it, it’s fine if if what you’re talking about is is real when you talk about like real concerns that the customer comes to you with, but like manipulating somebody into that, you know, I don’t like that.
17:04
No, no, to me, it’s these days for at least the kind of stuff that I sell, I want to have my customer for years, not just a single transaction.
17:16
Thank you.
17:16
See you later.
17:18
I want them for years.
17:19
And so I have to build a rapport.
17:21
I have to build a relationship and I have to become their partner, their trusted advisor.
17:27
All that takes work and effort to do that.
17:30
But the long term payoff is fantastic.
17:33
Yeah, No, I completely agree.
17:34
And in my world now, you know, prior to to coming to Nexus IT, you know, I don’t sell a thing.
17:42
I don’t, you know, yes, I can sell you a computer, but it’s not what we sell.
17:45
I can sell you a network stack, but it’s not really what we sell.
17:49
We sell, you know, labor.
17:52
We sell an untangible thing that says I’m going to support you.
17:57
I’m going to I’m going to be here for your company long term, my company and me.
18:01
We’re going to be here for you, you know, years 345 and however long.
18:06
And we’re going to coach you through this process of of adjusting your IT and whatever else you need to be successful for your company.
18:15
That that’s a different process than, you know, here’s a copier.
18:20
It’s it’s 60 pages a minute.
18:21
Does black and white in color, you know, blah, blah, blah.
18:24
That’s that’s feature sets.
18:26
Yeah.
18:26
Nobody cares.
18:28
You know, so this is this this particular role was a was a learning curve for me when I came on with all of my machismo charisma that I thought I had when I came on, I was humbled.
18:41
I, I didn’t sell anything for the first six months at Nexus.
18:43
IT no, it’s a, it’s a different world.
18:48
What’s the hardest thing about your job?
18:52
Oh gosh, I think, I think the hardest probably is, is really, we have, we have an internal team, we have internal processes and you know, the hardest part really, you know, customers and, and leads and stuff like that.
19:11
Every, every sales job comes with customers and leads.
19:14
You got to you got to go find them.
19:15
So that’s par for the course internally.
19:18
We we have a team of really, really smart people.
19:24
And then you got your sales guys.
19:26
And I’m not saying the sales guys aren’t smart, but I’m not smart.
19:29
Like they’re smart.
19:30
They’re really technically smart.
19:33
And when we come to to that team with a new project or a outside of the box type of an agreement with a customer, that’s a tough sell internally.
19:46
Like we’ve, we’ve got a, we’ve got to navigate that the, the right way so that we’re getting them on board way ahead of a potential customer that we might not even get.
19:59
But we hope we do, and we’re preparing them for that moment when we do get them or if we do get them.
20:05
That they’re not shocked, surprised, you know, frustrated with, with the work that needs to be done.
20:11
You know, we’ve had to, we’ve had to change a few things that we’ve done internally at Nexus as a sales team and as a support team to, to get on that same page, so to speak.
20:22
It’s taken some time, but and, and it’s still a process, right?
20:25
But, you know, it’s, it’s turned around pretty well, I think.
20:30
I hope.
20:31
But yeah, yeah, no, I get it.
20:33
It’s I talk about this all the time with in my world selling CRM that people are often very focused on the sales process and we need to manage the sales process.
20:45
But I like, hey, that’s like 10 to 20% of the conversation we need to have.
20:50
Because if you’re like most businesses, you want this customer for a very long time.
20:56
So now we sold them something.
20:58
The big part is now we need to deliver.
21:00
We need to drive customer success.
21:02
There’s all these other things that are going to happen once that deal is flagged as closed, closed one in CRM.
21:09
There’s a whole bunch of stuff that needs to happen now to make sure that we’re successful and do all those things we talked about that we have that successful transition to whoever now has to deliver, be it shipping, whatever, whatever business model you’re in, There’s a whole bunch that has to happen once that transaction is complete.
21:28
And so that I think that’s really important.
21:31
And I see that as a major struggle for so many businesses.
21:34
I mean, because I the work I do when I come in, we put a spotlight on on stuff just what like what you’re talking about.
21:42
And it’s not easy.
21:43
Those are hard problems to solve.
21:45
Yeah, it is, It is.
21:46
I mean, you know, you’ve got a team that literally will say, you know, hey, guys, we can’t take on any more customers right now to the to, to the team whose job it is and who will actually get let go if they don’t bring in more, more customers, you know?
22:03
Yeah, yeah.
22:05
So what what is your as a leader, what is your approach to building a team, keeping them motivated, keeping them focused?
22:16
What’s your approach?
22:17
You know, I think, I think the, the first key there is really finding the right people, which I think is maybe the hardest part in sales.
22:27
You can, you can talk to to 10 people and be really impressed with, you know, 4 out of or six out of the 10 by the conversation you had with them.
22:39
You know, they’re, they’ve got some experience, they’ve got, they’ve got some history of success, you know, but where, where the rubber meets the road is, are they long term?
22:49
Are they, you know, are they going to follow through?
22:52
Sales is a sales is a game in a lot of worlds where you’re left to succeed or not.
22:59
And and it’s up to you, You know, they’ll a certain company will like you mentioned, you know, oh, we got to manage the sales process.
23:07
We got to track numbers.
23:08
We got to, you know, funnel this and funnel that and you know, CRM, sorry, man, but you know, you watching those CRMS, you know, the real rubber meets the road is when your boss shouldn’t really be checking in or needing to check in on you.
23:25
You should be going and and trying to find and close deals without that hanging over your head.
23:31
You know, you, you got to find that person.
23:34
Sometimes that’s hard.
23:36
But moving on from that, let’s say you do find the right person.
23:40
I think really the biggest thing for me is, like I said before, is empowering those guys to, to have that time and, and tools necessary to do that.
23:50
So what do those tools look like?
23:51
And what does the time look like?
23:52
Because you know, in cells you got 8 to 5 or, or, you know, whatever it is business hours when customers are open and you can try to talk to them, you know, all the, all the meetings and all the reporting and all this other stuff.
24:05
Like I try to keep it, at least from my perspective, I try to keep those things to a minimum so that they have the maximum amount of time to be out in the field and closing deals and taking people to launch.
24:19
And whether it’s taking guys for, for a drink or coffee or whatever it is, you know, doing those kind of things that sales guys have been doing for ages and, and really just empower them.
24:30
And then, you know, motivating, you know, a salesperson is really just reminding, I think in my opinion, you know what you, you know, helping them to remind themselves, I guess in a way of, of what brought them there in the 1st place.
24:45
You know, I, I don’t need a reminder.
24:47
I have a, have a one year old, as I mentioned, and, and he’s up early and, you know, and my wife and I do the best we can, but that’s a constant reminder for me every single day.
24:59
But you know, everybody needs a little push once in a while.
25:02
So it’s, you know, hey, let’s, let’s sit down, let’s chat about, you know, what motivates you?
25:06
Where do you want to go?
25:08
You know, what’s it going to take to get there?
25:10
What are what are those goals look like?
25:11
And what are the steps now that need need to be done to to get you to your goal?
25:17
Oh yeah.
25:18
Do you like to give your team?
25:21
Do you hold the tight rein or do you give them a lot of rope?
25:23
Lot of rope?
25:25
Why lot of rope?
25:26
I you know, again, it’s, it’s a it’s a, it’s really trust.
25:30
I think when you have when you have good guys on your team and you have the trust, you don’t need to be tight, right?
25:40
You don’t need to be watching over him.
25:41
You don’t need to be micromanaging every single piece of their day.
25:47
I don’t want to know what you’re doing.
25:48
You know, if you’re not in the office, I don’t, I don’t want to know what you’re doing.
25:52
You know, the reality is, is that that guy might be or that person might be on the cells or on the golf course.
25:59
Well, he might be on the golf course with somebody that he’s trying to close business with.
26:03
That’s absolutely fine.
26:05
I don’t need to know that.
26:06
What I need to know is, you know, where, where are we at?
26:09
Like what’s your goals for this quarter?
26:11
What are your, what’s your number?
26:13
How are we going to get there?
26:14
You know, what are, what are the steps that we’re going to take to get there?
26:17
And, and if you’re hitting those numbers and you’re hitting those, you know, KPISIII don’t like that term.
26:23
But if you’re hitting that K those KPIs, I’m not checking on you.
26:27
If you’re a consistent performer, you know, my hands are, you know, you’re, you’re good to go.
26:32
Let me actually just reference to a story if if you don’t mind.
26:36
Chris, I have a a really good friend of mine.
26:40
He used to be at a hedge fund investing in tech companies.
26:47
His company had put some money into.
26:51
I don’t remember the type of company it was, but they put some money into this company and the CEO would always complain to my friend, Hey, you know, I’ve got this sales Rep who, you know, he doesn’t come into the office.
27:04
I don’t know what he’s doing and I don’t like it.
27:07
And my friend’s question was, well, what are his numbers like?
27:10
And he said, oh, best on the team, but I can’t control him and my, and I think he only works, you know, 4 hours a a day.
27:19
And, and he and my friend said, I don’t, I don’t see the problem.
27:22
And he said, no, I, you don’t understand.
27:24
He’s only working 4 hours a day maybe.
27:27
And he says, yeah, but is he killing it?
27:29
Is he killing it for you?
27:30
Is he doing the job that you hired him to do?
27:34
Yes.
27:35
OK, Leave him alone.
27:37
You know, it’s, it’s really about like you when you hire for your company, you’re looking for a tool to do a job.
27:47
You know, you’re looking for a screwdriver to do that, to tighten a screw.
27:52
He’s he’s not a wrench, he’s not a, he’s not a pair of pliers.
27:56
He’s nothing else.
27:57
He’s a screwdriver or a hammer, however you want to look at it.
28:00
But that’s what you hire for your team is you hire the tool for the job, and then you let that tool be the that thing and let it go and do its work.
28:09
Yeah, that’s like, no, baby, you’re, you want a horse that’s pulling you hard and fast.
28:16
It’s like, and, and if you don’t have to hold the reins, that’s the best.
28:21
Yeah, it’s the very best.
28:22
You can focus on other stuff that, you know, put your effort where it’s going to add more, you know, actually add value to the business rather than trying to cold control this, you know, this lead dog.
28:32
You know, we all want that lead dog that’s crushing it for us, right?
28:35
Yeah, 100%.
28:36
Yep.
28:37
You let them go and, and you don’t worry about it.
28:39
If if they continue to crush it, hands off.
28:42
Yeah, exactly.
28:43
What if they’re not?
28:45
Yeah.
28:45
I mean, then, you know, you start, you got to start looking at it.
28:49
You got to start looking at it and try to figure out what’s going to take to turn that person around.
28:53
You know, I think that you got to have a conversation.
28:56
You know, it’s maybe it’s two quarters in and they’re not hitting, you know, you started start to figure out where the where the disconnect is.
29:04
Are there real issues?
29:07
You know, are there real things in the market, in society and you know, like, you know, maybe maybe it’s an election year, for example, and, and sales are a little slow around November.
29:19
I don’t know, maybe that’s, maybe that’s a thing.
29:22
There’s always up and downs in, in, in our world where the first quarter is, is good and the, and the last quarter of each year is, is usually the best.
29:31
And those middle 2 are kind of kind of rough.
29:34
So you, you know, in, at least from my perspective, you can’t judge it on, on one or two quarters.
29:40
You got to kind of look at a whole thing.
29:41
But you know, if they’re consistently missing and have been consistently missing, then yeah, you got to start looking at it.
29:48
You got to start figuring out is the motivation there, is the skill there and do they have what they need to be successful?
29:55
And if if all those three things are there and they’re still missing, then, you know, it’s a different conversation about, you know, it’s time to say, OK.
30:04
And, and hey, I’ve been on, I’ve been on the other side of this conversation.
30:07
Hey, you’re not hitting what we need you to hit.
30:10
I’ve worked for companies with very high standards, higher than, you know, a lot of sales organizations I’ve worked for.
30:17
And you know, if you’re not hitting those, those numbers or those KPIs as you go through, they’re going to put it to you.
30:24
And, you know, I was let go from one of those companies who I still like very much, very much respect and, and have the utmost respect for my former boss who who had to let me go.
30:37
So how do you recover from that?
30:39
Because that happens to everybody.
30:40
If you’re selling long enough, you’re in that scenario.
30:43
It’s very few people don’t ever experience that in a sales career.
30:47
How did you come back from that experience?
30:50
Gosh, that’s a great question.
30:52
Honestly, Chris, I, you know, for me at the time, there was, there was, and, and again, I think it was a leader in a leadership role.
30:59
You need to look at these things.
31:01
But for me, in that moment, at that time in my life, I was going through some pretty difficult things personally.
31:07
But it still, it still does make you question yourself.
31:12
It makes you question whether or not you’re, you know, am I good enough for this?
31:17
Should I look for, you know, a different career path?
31:20
And I’ve been down those rabbit holes in my brain more times than I care to admit.
31:26
You know, maybe this isn’t the thing.
31:28
Maybe I’m actually not good at this.
31:29
Maybe I need to, you know, go back to college and be a doctor.
31:33
Eight years.
31:33
I’m 46 years old.
31:35
Can you imagine?
31:37
How do you how do you come back from it?
31:39
You know, I think I think that’s a great questions, maybe like one of the better questions to to really think about.
31:47
But you know, if if I had to put one thing on it, you know, you do have to, I think you have to allow yourself to go through that process.
31:56
You have to go through the process of being, of questioning yourself, of looking at yourself in the mirror, like I’ve said before.
32:04
And, and then ultimately, if you decide that this, this is the thing, you, you come back from it and, and try to learn from it and say, here’s, you know, yes, these, these other things surrounding my life were real things did happen, were tough times.
32:19
Did I come out of it still alive, still breathing, still got food, still got water, right?
32:23
The, the three basic things.
32:26
Can I make another go at it?
32:28
And do I have the stomach for it?
32:30
And you know what it takes to succeed.
32:33
You’ve had some, some success.
32:35
You know where you failed.
32:36
You know what happened when you failed.
32:38
You can look at those things and, and try to be objective about it, you know, making excuses for it is one thing, but looking at it from a, from a realistic perspective of, yes, my life and the, and these personal struggles were happening, but that’s that happened in, in this moment of my life, right?
32:59
Like this, you know, whatever, whatever time frame, moment of your life, it happened and you still came out of it and you still got to provide, you still got, you know, whatever it is, you got a roof over your head or you got, you know, bills to pay, kids to take care of, whatever it is, you still got to do something.
33:16
So you got to make that call and and then really just push, you know, you can find motivation in a lot of ways.
33:22
And and you know, that’s a whole other ball of of wax that you can talk about on a different podcast, I’m sure.
33:29
But, you know, all the books that are out there to, to get motivated and all the things, you know, where do you dig deep when it doesn’t feel like there’s anything to dig deep into?
33:41
Yeah, No, exactly.
33:42
There’s always something there.
33:44
You just have to find it.
33:45
And may not always be a parent and, and but it’s, you know, I’ve been in the moment where there was one point in my career where my brother came to me and said, hey, you know, I had sold my business.
33:58
I’d taken a year off, I went to grad school, got my MBA and got that.
34:03
And then I literally took some time off, took a few months off to actually like, all right, I just need to sit and do nothing for a little while.
34:11
But then I was like, all right, my batteries are recharged.
34:13
I’m ready to go into the next thing.
34:15
And my brother came to me and he’s like, Hey, I, I know you’re probably not at all interested in doing this, but would you be interested in in, you know, he was part of a executive team.
34:27
They were doing a $40 million implementation of ERP, and I’d never implemented ERP before.
34:32
He’s like, you know, I think you would be a great team, you know, person on the team.
34:35
And it ended up being one of the coolest experience of my life, you know?
34:40
And so it’s like you just have to, I think in those moments you’re facing that fork in the road you have to be going down the one that’s looking kind of gnarly, you know, like, hey, I don’t know, that’s really the one to go down.
34:53
But man, it didn’t.
34:54
It’ll often times being super, super interesting.
34:57
So that’s great.
35:00
CRM.
35:01
Do you love it or do you hate it?
35:04
I think it’s a necessary evil right in the middle.
35:09
Yeah, I, you know, honestly, there, there are some things that I really do feel like are necessary for ACRM.
35:18
And then there are things that I feel like are, are really not necessary.
35:20
And I think, you know, there’s a lot of CRMS out there, different versions and all that kind of stuff that that have different levels of being good or bad or whatever.
35:30
All of them ultimately have a bunch of, you know, things like a funnel, you know, what are you closing?
35:35
What are the percentages of these deals closing?
35:38
So you move, either move them this way or you move them this way or this way up or down, whatever your funnel looks like.
35:45
And, and as a sales guy for me as, as just the purest sales guy, I don’t like reporting.
35:54
I don’t like spreadsheets.
35:55
My brain doesn’t work in that way.
35:57
So I, I don’t, I’m not good at it.
36:00
Organization skills terrible.
36:02
You know, I, I try to be better at it.
36:04
I’ve learned to do a few things over the years to keep myself organized.
36:08
But if you saw my notes, it would look like a mess to almost probably anybody but me.
36:12
It makes sense to me, you know, so that’s kind of where I see CRM is, is a necessary evil.
36:18
You got to be able to, to say, I closed this deal and, and move it to that stage.
36:24
And you got to be able to track a customer.
36:26
You got to be able to track and, and keep them in a good easily retrievable central location that ACRM provides to be able to say, I had this meeting or I had this conversation.
36:40
And you know, the, the, the ugly part of the CRM is that your, your boss or the leadership of your company is going to look at all of that stuff and ask you what happened.
36:51
And that’s OK.
36:53
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with it.
36:55
But as a sales guy, you just want to go sell.
36:57
You don’t want to spend time on organizing information and data.
37:01
But so, I mean, that’s my take, Chris.
37:04
Yeah.
37:05
If you had a magic wand and you could fix one thing with your CRM, what would it be?
37:15
I closed more deals in Q4.
37:17
No, it’s not CRM, it’s selling, Yeah, but I want the CRM to just make it so so that happen.
37:24
OK, Yeah, yeah, no, I don’t know.
37:26
I think, I think the the one thing, maybe it’s an AI thing, I don’t know, but but something that was a little bit more intuitive I guess that that took some of the the guesswork out of it.
37:40
You know, I think maybe this is in the works someplace, probably is, you know, but but every every company wants to know what’s the percentage of this deal closing?
37:50
Well, I can, I can tell you what I think, but it’s still just a guess.
37:55
Even if I think, you know, even if I even if they said Mike and I’ve you and me and everybody in in sales has had this happen.
38:03
If you’ve been in sales longer than a year, Mike, we’re closing this deal, we’re going to get it done.
38:07
And you’re still six months later, a year later or even longer, still waiting on that and hoping, Hey, when, when are we closing this deal, man?
38:16
And you didn’t get it.
38:17
No, exactly.
38:18
That’s, that’s the toughest 1 I think is estimated close date that it’s the reality is you can’t control it.
38:30
You can influence it.
38:32
You can’t control it.
38:33
And even your ability to influence it might, at least for the stuff that I sell, because they’re very complex deals.
38:40
I, the rowdy is, I have very little influence over it.
38:44
All I can do is what I can do to get them, you know, things I’ve learned over the years.
38:49
But the rowdy is, it is a gas.
38:52
It’s my best guess, but I’m not controlling all the other factors in place, you know, because they might be waiting, like they may be waiting for their big deal to close.
39:02
So they’ve got the revenue to come spend money with me.
39:06
And so it’s like this downstream ripple thing, you know, which is often the case of of, you know.
39:11
So yeah, I think that’s a pretty common existence when it comes to CRM.
39:17
Oh, yeah, for sure.
39:19
Word or time here on sales and Dog.
39:21
It’s been great talking with you.
39:22
I appreciate you coming on the show.
39:24
People want to reach out and connect with you.
39:26
Maybe they want to learn more about Nexus.
39:29
What’s the best way for them to do that?
39:31
Yeah, you can send me an e-mail.
39:33
It’s Mike at nexusitc.net.
39:38
Happy to talk once.
39:39
Once you connect that way.
39:41
I mean, you know, we can, we can set up a time to to talk further via a team’s call or, or something like this.
39:47
But yeah.
39:48
Or go visit us at our website at nexusitc.net.
39:53
Awesome.
39:53
Did you get any of that?
39:54
That’s OK.
39:55
You can get it on our show notes at impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog.
40:00
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40:05
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40:07
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40:08
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40:10
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40:12
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40:17
Mike, thank you for coming on Sales Lead Dog and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog pack.
40:23
Hey, I appreciate it, Chris.
40:24
Really appreciate your time.
40:27
As we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog.
40:30
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40:34
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40:38
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40:47
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