Shannon Mulligan is the CEO of VAST Results and she understands the importance of sales, as well as its challenges. She has more than 15 years of experience in B2B sales.
After being laid off from a national sales manager role at five months pregnant Shannon quickly realized that small businesses had a desperate need for follow up sales support… Vast Results (along with her son Myles) was born. She and her team work with those small businesses to create and improve follow up processes and then act as an extension of their team to execute those systems.
On this week’s episode listen to hear why Shannon believes strongly in the power of her “Mom Squad” and why she is working hard to build a platform for moms to create flexible work opportunities while helping her clients get to yes!
Tune in to hear Shannon’s amazing story of success in the field of sales as a Gen X who found an accidental career on this sales path, but quickly found her passion!
Watch or listen to this episode:
Transcript:
Thu, 4/7 · 11:32:22 34:55
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
sales crm salesperson clients women lead people sales team selling process long sales cycle leader listening kickoff tool companies linkedin business advice super
Speakers
Christopher Smith & Shannon Mulligan
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 Shannon Mulligan of VAST Results. Shannon, welcome to Sales Lead Dog.
Shannon Mulligan
Hi, thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me.
Christopher Smith
I’m very excited to have you here on the show, Shannon. Shannon, tell us about VAST Results.
Shannon Mulligan
So VAST Results is a specialized business development firm. We help clients that have b2b clients that have long sales cycles, follow up nurture, and find gold in their existing lead database. We are that sales outreach for leads that may have gone dormant or quiet. And we actively pursue those leads and to their natural conclusion. I have- I call it my Mom Squad of moms here that want to do part-time selling work. And they actively go after our clients leads for them and either get them an appointment or reengage a conversation, get another proposal sent out and they just follow those leads to their natural conclusion.
Christopher Smith
That’s awesome. You know, one of the things that I really interested me in having you on the show, is that unique perspective that you know, people in your position to have working as a sales resource for companies, I think you guys have a different perspective on things than necessarily a traditional sales force. But especially your long sales cycle, I think is fascinating. Can you talk a bit about how you guys approach your sales process considering that is going in knowing it’s going to be a long process?
Shannon Mulligan
Right, so our clients really understand the- so they’re established, right? They might be in a business 7-10 years, and they really understand the value of the information they have. They’ve gathered over that 7-10 years from trade shows to speaking events to podcast, all the things that companies do when it comes to marketing. But, they also recognize that their service, what they’re providing is not something that somebody’s going to say yes to after one, two demos. It’s a consistent knocking on the door of that prospect for our client that gets them to ‘Yes’, that gets them that ability to actually get reengaged or to close the business. I mean, we have one client, we’ve been working with them almost six years now. It took four years. Now they have a very long sales cycle. It’s almost a year long. So that’s not crazy. But it was four years of knocking on that door. So that’s what my Mom’s Squad does, we have their business development directors, they’re consistently reaching out with different touches LinkedIn, emails, phone calls, all the things just to try to re-engage that qualified lead.
Christopher Smith
So as a sales leader, and I’m struggling with that, that similar issue, where I’m trying to build a sales team that’s going to be effective. And as you say, getting us to yes, your tagline getting you to ‘Yes’, which I love. You really have to go about that I imagine with a great deal of intentionality and structured process, can you? What advice do you have for sales leaders around, you know, establishing that process and what they need to be thinking about?
Shannon Mulligan
For sure. I’d say, first and foremost, all of our clients need to have some type of CRM, we cannot work with you, if you got that stack of business cards on your on your monitor, everyone knows about it, or that spreadsheet or information’s kind of everywhere. They definitely need to have some type of CRM, we can help our clients implement a CRM, we can help recommend CRMs. But we need to have some type of way to track not only our activities, so we can be transparent to our client that we are doing what we say we’re doing just like any salesperson, but it just allows us to do our job easier, right? We’re not looking for bits of information everywhere. And then I say the second big portion, of course, is that their marketing house has to be in order, right? They have to have the tools the toolkit to give us the ammunition to go out there and try to re-engage. So, I’d say those are the two big things and there’s no silver bullets for
Christopher Smith
But it takes hard work to put that stuff in place. Correct?
Shannon Mulligan
Correct? It does, it really does. And I think it takes a little bit of time to sometimes just like, it’s why Windows has, you know, wrong Windows version 10. Now, right? It’s not Windows one anymore, right? They’re just, you just need to kind of keep, you know, upgrading, you know, your processes, but you need to start somewhere, you need to have some kind of foundational building block and just keep improving upon them.
Christopher Smith
Yeah, you know, what’s amazing is I do what I do, companies I come across of all sizes, you know, we’re on the small size, they might be doing 2 to 5 million a year in revenue. I know of a company that’s doing 200 million a year, no CRM, and they’re running out of QuickBooks. And so it’s possible to get that far without that technology infrastructure. But the reality is, you’re gonna live through a lot of pain.
Shannon Mulligan
I mean, yes, it is absolutely possible to do that. I don’t recommend it. Because you’re right, a lot of pain that could entail a lot of high turnover. Right, salespeople are difficult. I mean, especially in today’s you know, the market with job seekers. And it’s really difficult to how do you attract and retain those and salespeople are not going to stay? If stuff is, we have little patience as a salesperson, myself, first and foremost, we have little patience for that type of thing. We want all the things right there at first easy to go in order to do what we do- sell.
Christopher Smith
Right? What advice do you have for someone who’s listening that says, you know what, we don’t have a CRM. And maybe we need help with the process, you know, besides just getting started? What advice do you have for them? You know, for that process of, you know, obtaining and implementing a CRM?
Shannon Mulligan
Well, first, don’t let it overwhelm you, right? Because there are a lot of tools out there now, right? I mean, I think it’s like the Cheesecake Factory menu. It’s almost too much, you know, it’s too many choices. But don’t let that overwhelm you. Just pick one that you feel that works. Think of your goal, right? What do you want the CRM really to do? Right? Do you need it to do your invoicing? Do you need it to keep track of inventory is what I mean? Like, if it’s just keeping track of contents, or contacts, and just kind of a natural progression of a lead. And it doesn’t have to be anything super, super complicated or expensive. But I would think about the goal of the CRM, and then not be afraid just to like, I think a lot of our clients get hung up in the fact of, well, what if this doesn’t grow with me? What am I do in 10 years, I’m like, well, you don’t have anything now. So, what’s the right way like this is better than what you have. So, you need to start somewhere. And I’m a big fan of just blocking the time, right? I have time on my calendar, I own a business, I’m a business owner and understand the value of processes myself. So, I block off time on my calendar and just work on my processes. And honestly, all that is just typing on a Google document about documenting what happens and when it happens next.
Christopher Smith
That’s right. And you know that when it comes to selecting CRM, it’s so key to get the right size for where you are now. But I also recommend people think about where you are three to five years, it’s hard to go beyond three to five years, you know, 10 years, forget it, you have no idea where you’re gonna be in 10 years. But three years, I think is a pretty reasonable window, maybe stretching it to five. And just make sure that whatever platform you select, if you choose in three to five years, you know, I’ve outgrown this one, I don’t want to go to the next one. Make sure there’s a migration path to something else. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across companies where they get there and they realize Words Doc, you know, it’s gonna be really expensive to get out of what we’re in. So just make sure you’ve got that path. Have you ever come across that where you’ve had clients where they’re just get in that position, and they’re stuck?
Shannon Mulligan
No, I haven’t. Yeah, most of my clients because of their size, who were you know, or avatar are fairly small, you know, so they haven’t really outgrown what they if they have anything, a lot of them don’t have anything. And haven’t outgrown that yet. But I have worked for companies where they have something proprietary, right. It’s something that was built specifically for them. And then it’s done well for them, but they’ve just outgrown it, and it’s this huge, expensive undertaking that takes years.
Christopher Smith
Oh, yeah. Can be painful, right. Oh, yeah. The other advice I have for people and I’d love your opinion on this is they tend to get so wrapped up on the actual tool itself. They forget about people and process, which, you know, they look to like, Oh, if I get the CRM, it’s going to solve all my problems and in reality, it can create a lot more problems if you’re not addressing the first, what are your feelings around that?
Shannon Mulligan
Oh, for sure, because we both noticed, Chris, if the salesperson, salespeople have a, and maybe I’m stereotyping here. But we have an issue with CRM, I mean, and it is extremely clunky. Or if it’s, you know, they’re making a decision based on just price or it’s the shiniest new thing. And they’re not thinking about the salesperson or a sales support person that’s actually working within the CRM, they will use it and there really is no reason to have it. Pay for it. So yeah, I completely agree the users, the salespeople need to be a part of the conversation, or the tool needs to have said, we look at how the users are going to implement this.
Christopher Smith
Right. And can it support my process? Yeah, I think that’s a key part. And one thing that I’ve been talking to a lot of companies about is going beyond CRM and looking at some of the sales enablement tools that are out there. What’s your philosophy around leveraging those additional tools that are to help with sequencing and you know, that really extend the power of your CRM?
Shannon Mulligan
I think they’re great. I, again, I think you have a lot of choices nowadays. And it can seem overwhelming, to folks to make a decision, you know, paralysis analysis, you know, analysis paralysis. And I think if you’re going to add on to a sales enablement tool, to exactly to your point, as long as it’s going to continue to support your existing processes or a new process, then that’s a good tool and pick it and use it and then try a new iteration if it doesn’t work. But I don’t think not making a decision or not adding the data isn’t. If it’s going to add to your processor, it’s going to add, automate, it’s going to add automation, where it’s appropriate, I completely see value in that.
Christopher Smith
That’s awesome. How do you engage with your customers? If you’re, you’ve got a new customer, and you’re getting them started with this process? What’s your approach? Or how do you guys go about that?
Shannon Mulligan
Sure. So, we have an onboarding process usually starts, we schedule a kickoff call. But prior to the kickoff call, we send them a checklist of things we want to see their marketing toolkit is one of those things. And we asked them to do some infrastructure work, you know, our business development directors get their own email address, you know, we get a license set up in the CRM, things like that, just kind of housekeeping. And then we start with a kickoff call. And that’s generally we spend an hour sometimes an hour and a half on the call, just talking through our initial strategy. What, who, because you actually mentioned it earlier, yes, we were very strategic, right, we’re not just going to go out Willy, just pick a name and the database and we’re going to start calling or emailing, we’re going to be very strategic about who we approach based upon our client’s feedback. Some of a lot of the clients that we’ve worked with have been professional speakers, professional coaches, and so they really want our help on kind of following up on leads that raise their hand during, you know, a webinar or event or something, or downloaded the white paper, things like that. So, we try to be and we try to plan out a strategy, and then we come back to them with okay, great, this is how we’re going to, we think we should approach it using their existing marketing, if they’ve got a great piece, or they’ve got a great email that they send out that we like and think would be effective. We’ll use that. And but if not, we’ll give them our feedback on what they could probably improve upon.
Christopher Smith
Right? So, you’re looking for those gaps, those holes that need to be filled, to really implement that effective process. And what I like about hearing answers like yours, as I think anyone who’s listening, that’s a sales leader, can leverage just what you talked about that says, hey, if I’m coming into a new organization, and I need to do the same thing, what’s that great strategy for getting that done? So, thank you for sharing that. What advice do you have for someone that is embarking on that journey? For beyond just getting started? But you know, what should I be focusing on the first 90 days?
Shannon Mulligan
As a new seller, the first 90 days, I just listened to the sales people? Well, I mean, I would just listen to the salespeople, whether their complaints or the fantastic things they like about the job are true or not are legitimate or whatever it is. There’s clearly a reason they’ll voice it. And then you can maybe look at okay, we need to improve upon this process, because this is where our bottleneck is or we need to prove upon this process because the sales reps are getting frustrated and they find out like I can’t do what I’m supposed to be doing and spending time on the you know, making my $40 or whatever as I would that, to me as I think it’s something that sales leaders get a little too, they rush, you know, sales leaders come in, you know, the new VP of Sales comes in, of course, they want to make up, like lots of people who want to broad sweeping changes, but I think they skip over that important factor of listening to what, what is truly going on. And before they make any kind of major decisions…
Christopher Smith
Right. So, what about with your clients, you know, where you need to start showing, you know, results, what is your reasonable expectation for seeing those results as a sales leader?
Shannon Mulligan
So for us, it’s different, because we’re a part-time resource, you know, none of my mom’s work more than 10 hours a week for any of our accounts. So of course, our results are going to be very different, just because of the less time we’re spending on making these follow up phone calls. So we set up those expectations pretty early on at the beginning, at the kickoff call, this is what we would like to be able to accomplish, we hear what our client what they feel is successful, what they want to see the end of because all of our engagements, we have a minimum six month initial contract, and then what they would like to have seen at that six months, and then after that, it’s of course, month-to-month. So, it’s really about setting up the expectations really kind of very, at the very beginning of relationship, I would say of a traditional sales leader of a traditional, you know, inside sales team, I think just communicating with them about the existing, you know, if they’re coming in brand new to an existing sales team, what their existing goals are, and how you can help them plow stuff out of the way so they can meet those and then in the next quarter, readdress and realign maybe to what you feel is more appropriate? Or if you’re building a sales team, a brand new sales team, that’s a harder thing to answer that, because a lot of them probably don’t have a lot of experience. How do you figure out the goal that’s appropriate for people with less experience or more experience? I know goals and goals and metrics are hard. So, I don’t think I have a great answer for that one.
Christopher Smith
Well, that’s okay. The key there, I think listening to you, it’s communication. And it’s listening. You know, it’s asking those questions, listening to the answers, and having that exchange to get to what that ultimate answer is going to be?
Shannon Mulligan
Yeah, they’re deep, too. This is my opinion, you know, we’ve moved this buyer centric, you know, model where we’re, you know, very focused on the buyer. And I sometimes feel like the sales rep gets lost in that buyer centric, right, if we’re pushing stuff up from the bottom right, and that buyer centric model, I think it should be true of the sales reps, right? The sales reps should have some input, right? It is not a democracy, I do get that. But they should have some input on their goals of their metrics and what motivates them.
Christopher Smith
Right. Like to shift the conversation a bit to talk about something that we’re both passionate about. And that’s increasing the visibility of women in sales. Can you talk to me about that? And yeah, your opinions on that?
Shannon Mulligan
Yes. Thank you so much, Chris. Yeah, this is, I mean, obviously, as a woman, it’s important to me, and I appreciate you bringing visibility to and asking the question, and I would love to see more women in the career of sale. I would love to see more women in sales leadership, I would just love to see more women in leadership in general. But I would just love to see more women not be in this as a sales as a viable career, not something that you can make a very good living at, that has a lot of flexibility to it. And I would just I would like to see more of it. And I feel like we’re getting closer and closer to that. I feel like there’s more women truly going into sales intentionally, like a lot of people. I won’t maybe we’re maybe we’re not of the same age, or we’re probably close. I’m a Gen X or I feel like we, I felt it was sales was an accidental career for me. And I feel like a lot of people that are similar age to me, as women, the same thing. We just kind took the first job as a pharmaceutical rep. We took the first job as the copier rep. We took the first job as the pay, you know, the HR Payroll company rep, and we learned we had a sense we had a knack for it or a talent for it. And so, I’d really love to see women choose sales as a career and see themselves in it.
Christopher Smith
That’s a great, I love that. What do you think is holding back women from making that choice?
Shannon Mulligan
I think they think they need to have a certain personality, quality, or qualities that women don’t see themselves as traditionally having. I think they think that they’re going to have to go into an environment that’s going to be pretty male dominated. And they’re not sure they can do that. And I always tell them, I’m like, hey, newsflash, most industries are male dominated. So, whether you’re selling widgets, or you’re a scientist, right, you’re mostly around Joe. So, I would like them to just recognize that selling does not have to be… I want to change the idea of what a good salesperson is, you know, I really do, it’s doesn’t have to be this idea of this aggressive, always be closing, you know, these are the good leads, salesperson…
Christopher Smith
Right? If you think about so much of sales, these days, at least in my world, it’s being consultative of being a really great listener, being able to establish rapport with someone. It’s not like you were saying, like the high pressure or the super aggressive or anything like that. Now, for sales leaders that look, you know, maybe looking at their team and saying, you know, what, my team is 80 or 90%. Male, what should I be doing to transform the makeup of that team?
Shannon Mulligan
Well, you could look to groups, there are lots of women and sales groups all over the country. And you could find them on LinkedIn, if you are intentionally trying to hire more women on your sales team. I think the first place you need to do is start looking at those groups. Here, myself and another woman here, we found here in Columbus, Columbus Women in Sales, and it’s a group of b2b sales women, some of them are looking for jobs, of course, some, some of them are not. But there’s another group in Utah, and there’s National Association of Women sales professionals that the fabulous Cynthia Barnes runs. And there’s Women Sales Pros, which is the group that, that I’m in that how you found me. There’s lots of ways to find women sellers, and recruit, and encourage them to get into sales. And then the second part of it is that I would really encourage them to look at their job descriptions, and how they describe the job of the sales job that they have. And think about it. Sometimes maybe differently, and how you actually phrase things and, and how you describe the role they’re going to be doing. So, they feel like they could apply and be like, oh, yeah, that sounds like me.
Christopher Smith
Yeah, that’s great advice. That’s great advice. What about if I’m listening, and I’m a female in sales right now? What should I be thinking about? If I want to pursue a sales leadership role?
Shannon Mulligan
Find a mentor. And I know to everybody this probably is a cliched answer, but it’s so true. And here’s the secret, Chris, they don’t have to know that they’re there. You could just start out, you don’t have to go, can you please be my mentor, you could just start a conversation with a woman you admire in sales, and just start a conversation that turns into a friendship. And all of a sudden, you have a mentor. And you don’t even ever have to say the words, would you be my mentor, you have to do that work, right? You have to do that work of reaching out to that person getting in front of them, and then following up pursuing them for virtual coffee or regular coffee or whatever, buddy, whatever he’s doing right now. And that’s it. But first, you need to find that mentor who somebody you admire. And just ask them. Most of the women I know that are in sales and selling are super generous, because they know how difficult it can be.
Christopher Smith
Oh, yeah, yeah. And I just think in general, I think that’s wonderful advice, even if you don’t necessarily even want to be a sales leader, but you just want to be better at what you do. There’s so much to be gained from someone who’s been there done that.
Shannon Mulligan
I feel a responsibility- particularly as a woman to turn around and put my hand back out. And it is for sure done far more for me than potentially the person I’m helping. So yeah…
Christopher Smith
Yeah, and I know as an entrepreneur, I often give that same advice to entrepreneurs that just find someone in your network that’s an entrepreneur and make a phone call. I’ve yet to have an entrepreneur that I’ve reached out to say no, they’re always willing to share to do those experience shares. And like you said, lend a hand. We all know how tough it is.
Shannon Mulligan
We do and I generally, you know, this is a Midwestern Pollyanna and to me as my husband says, but I genuinely believe people want to help other people, right? They just do. As long as you’re not asking this huge thing, they’re gonna help and if they don’t and, and most entrepreneurs, and I’m sure like yourself and business owners, we’ve also gotten pretty good at saying no the right way. If it’s not something we want to do we get no, say no.
Christopher Smith
Yep. You know, I noticed with my daughter, I’ve tried to connect her with women in my network that are very successful. And she is scared to do that. And I’ve tried to explain it that honey, all you have to do is just say, I’d love to hear your story. Can you share your story with me? I’d like to know how you got where you are. Now. Why do you think she’s scared? Because I met most people. It’s not just gender specific. But people are afraid to do that initial outreach. Why is that?
Shannon Mulligan
Well, you’re asking for help. Right? And that’s a vulnerable thing. And that’s something you know, it feels vulnerable, you know, you feel like why don’t I shouldn’t need help, or I have my dad to help me or I know, my dad will connect me or you’re asking a stranger? Right? We’ve been conditioned, right? This is this, this is a stranger, right? Why would they? Why would they say yes to me? Why would they say yes? To me? I have no idea. You know? So, there’s I think, just, it could be… how old is your daughter?
Christopher Smith
How old is… she just turned 21.
Shannon Mulligan
And, again, I don’t want to say it’s not necessarily gender thing, but it is, I think, a generational thing. I think some of are much younger generation, right? It’s just, they communicate very differently, then you and I growing up did, and then making that hurdle into kind of the adult world of well, this is how adults. Like, that’s a that’s a huge thing, sometimes for kids that age. But I would say that, you know, just it’s hard to be vulnerable and ask for help. And that’s really what you’re doing.
Christopher Smith
Let’s talk about flip the coin or flip the coin a little bit here talk about vulnerability as a leader. What role does vulnerability as a leader have for you or your perspective?
Shannon Mulligan
Close To my heart- a huge part of it. Right? I really, I’m a proponent of being vulnerable. And as I like to say, sometimes radically transparent to my team. And I think it of course, I think it’s because it’s a well, it’s the all been all women that I’ve worked with, they of course respond, I think very positively to it, because they, they also recognize and see it. And I think it just it shows your team, you’re genuinely thinking about them, when you share something that you’re going through, and you’re potentially frustrated with, or you don’t know how to overcome or you’re just I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know what our next step should do. And by sharing and telling them that and asking them that. I mean, you’re, you’re bringing them in and you’re bringing them closer as you’re sharing with them that I feel like you’re such an important part of this team, that I feel comfortable sharing this with you. So, I think I think it pays so many dividends and in so many ways.
Christopher Smith
Yeah, I love that. How do you go about building your team, you know, considering the fractional part-time?
Shannon Mulligan
Chinese secret… no. So, in my age again, so it’s hard, obviously to show be honest and transparent and vulnerable here. And it’s hard for everybody right now. But it was hard before because we have a very specific thing we are asking. Um, we have had very good luck with multi as I call them refugees of MLMs, multi-level marketing, right? Because of who they are and the terrain, what they generally go after is generally a mom, and they didn’t have as much success as they thought they would be they would have, but they realize like they I’m pretty good at the selling thing. And you know, back before the pandemic, our model was extremely attractive because it wasn’t retail. It wasn’t nights, you know, it was nine to five Monday through Friday it was or 10 to three or whatever you wanted it to be right. So, it was super appealing. So, we’ve had a lot of success that way and that’s how I found a lot of and just networking in my local community here then they’re generally moms- my mom’s groups in my book clubs and things like that. But now it is for sure become much more competitive for me and for other models that like ours, because with this shift to hybrid and remote, you could work truly sell and be anywhere and do this. But that’s how we have in the past and trying to retain them by keeping them busy as the other way to keep them.
Christopher Smith
How do you teach them to speak with the voice of their customer?
Shannon Mulligan
That’s a great question. So, we have a kind of a loose sales training that everybody goes through Proactiv, the client has signed, and they’re prior to the kickoff call, we just kind of walk through. Once they send the marketing kit to us, you know, like we kind of get together because it’s very collaborative. I work with each business development director on the client, everybody make sure we’re growing in the same direction. And we just again, it’s very collaborative, we come up with like, okay, I think this is what they’re trying to say, I think this is what they’re trying to brand. I think this is how they’re trying to present themselves. I think this is the value proposition. And then we almost had the kickoff call, present back to them. We’re like, this is what we think you do, and how you do it, and why people work with you. And we give that back to them. And they go, oh, yeah, that is that’s exactly what you know. Or they go. No, no, that’s not what right. And so were then able to find kind of the holes in the end and fill the gaps. And then the Business Development Director is able to learn and gain knowledge just like it again, it’s just like any new employee, right? So I tell me, we’re not, we’re not really much different than any, if you hired a full time salesperson, we’re going to need that time to understand your value proposition. But that’s what we do prior to them coming on board.
Christopher Smith
Right, right? And what do you to work with your clients around developing that value proposition?
Shannon Mulligan
A tiny bit, right, we really try to stay in our lane of selling, right? If they need if they send us their marketing kit, and we’re like, oh, no, you know, then we might put the brakes on and go, ‘listen, you need to get your marketing house in order’. And you really probably need to think about doing X, Y, and Z, and then come back to us because we have tried the you know, going that route have tried to put the square peg in the round hole, and it’s, nobody’s happy. So we don’t do a lot of that work, we try to stay out of the marketing side.
Christopher Smith
Because, you know, it’s again, the reality of if you’re trying to sell without doing all that upfront work that you need to do to get your house in order. You know, it’s the same thing is like, hey, I want to implement CRM. But I haven’t figured out what my sales process is. I don’t understand how I’m going to implement that in CRM. It’s all the same, you have to do that upfront work to be successful.
Shannon Mulligan
For sure.
Christopher Smith
Yep. So, we’re coming up on our time here on Sales Lead Dog, Shannon, and I really appreciate you coming on the show. If people want to reach out and connect with you. They want to learn more about best results. What’s the best way for that to happen?
Shannon Mulligan
LinkedIn, I’m super active on LinkedIn. Obviously, they can search for my profile on there and send me a message or just try to connect with me saying you heard the podcasts I would love to hear from people and get their feedback.
Christopher Smith
And could we go through those websites, again, or resources that you have that you recommend for people that want to grow. They’re the female component of their sales team.
Shannon Mulligan
Sure, sure. Let’s see. Let’s see. Well, of course, there’s Women Sales Pros, and it’s womensalespros.com. And then here in Columbus, we have Columbus Women in Sales. It’s a group of about 700 women on the b2b sales market. There’s the National Association of Women Sales Professionals. And that’s run by the fabulous Cynthia Barnes. If you’re not following her on LinkedIn, you should. And then there’s one- Women in Revenue. That’s another one. I’m not as familiar. I’m not familiar with them, but I know they’re a large group as well.
Christopher Smith
Yeah, that’s a good one, too. Well, thank you so much for that information and sharing that with our listeners. And thanks again for coming on Sales Lead Dog.
Shannon Mulligan
Thanks so much, Chris. I appreciate it.
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 empellercrm.com/salesleaddog. Sales Lead Dog is supported by Empeller CRM, delivering objectively better CRM for business guaranteed.
Quotes
- “I call them my Mom Squad of moms that want to do part-time selling work and they actively go after our clients leads for them and either get them an appointment or re-engage a conversation, get another proposal sent out, and they just follow those leads to their natural conclusion.” (11:50-12:11)
- “That’s what my Moms Squad does. They’re business development directors. They’re consistently reaching out with different touches: LinkedIn, emails, phone calls, all the things just to try to re-engage that qualified lead.” (13:50-14:04)
- “So, for us it’s different because we’re a part-time resource- none of my moms work more than 10 hours a week for any of our accounts.” (26:15-26:23)
- “I would love to see more women in the career of sales, I would love to see more women sales leadership, I would just love to see more women in leadership in general.” (29:07- 29:12)
Links
Shannon Mulligan LinkedIn
VAST Results LinkedIn
VAST Results Webpage