Put Forth A Great Product – Greg Coonley

 

 

Transcript:

Mon, Feb 21, 2022

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
sales , business , crm , conversation , clients , starting , lead , centerfield , team , speaking , person , b2b , golf , people , important , necessarily , golf course , sell , linkedin , driving

SPEAKERS
Greg Coonley & Christopher Smith

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. I have joining me Greg Coonley of Centerfield Media. Greg, welcome to Sales Lead Dog.

Greg Coonley
Thanks for having me, Chris. Great to meet you.

Christopher Smith
Yeah, it’s great to meet you as well. It’s one of the best things about this job during the podcast. I get to meet people from all over the country otherwise, I would never meet so I appreciate you coming on. Absolutely. Great. Tell me about your current role at Centerfield Media.

Greg Coonley
Sure. So, I’m the vice president of sales for the Business Services Division. centerfield media actually come from an acquisition by centerfield media just about 15 months ago, where centerfield purchased business.com Business News Daily COMM And buyer zone to bolster their efforts, both from an SEO perspective, and just from an overall reach perspective on the b2b side. So, I’ve really been working on those domains for about six and a half years now. This is common Business News Daily. Both of those sites are geared towards small businesses and decision makers and owners who are looking to make purchasing decisions, either, you know, to help start or grow. So that could be anything from accounting to payroll, business phone systems, we even have categories for maybe less common types of things like forklifts and skid steer loaders. But essentially, you know, our, our core focus is that b2b market. And our content is organized through articles, but really category reviews and rankings. So, we rank very well organically for key terms like counting reviews, or, or payroll reviews, even brand specific terms. And when business owners or decision makers, Google, something that they need for their business, oftentimes, will show up on page one. From there, you know, the users take into content that helps them make that decision, what to look for, again, in the example of an accounting software, is there, you know, a specific vendor that is going to work well for their industry, be at a restaurant or retail, construction, and so forth. And then we have a ton of other ancillary content as well, that speaks to small business at large, you know, what’s changing with the pandemic, trends for 2022, shopping guides, things like that. So really kind of a one stop shop for those business owners to understand what their options are, and how they can leverage software and services to help grow their, their bottom line.

Christopher Smith
That’s pretty cool. And such, you know, for me as an entrepreneur, long term entrepreneur, that that’s it’s such a different world from when I started doing this in my early 20s, where the best you could do is go to a bookstore and buy a book, and hope it helped you. Now there’s such a wealth of information out on the internet, it’s frankly, it’s overwhelming. And so, to have resources like that, it’s just, it’s just such a huge benefit.

Greg Coonley
Yeah, it really is. We’ve got a full editorial team, with several members of that team who have been working on their specific categories for a decade plus, I think Chad reps and our team has been doing business phones for 15, maybe 20 years now. We’ve seen the evolution of, you know, the business phone hardware to now Unified Communications and Video, all of the different brands that have come and gone or rebranded or acquired each other. So there really has been an evolution for small businesses in general, but specific to the products and services that they need. It’s an ever-evolving space.

Christopher Smith
Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s awesome. So, Greg, let’s start talking about you now. You’ve had a pretty good career. What are the three things that have really contributed to the success you’ve achieved in your career?

Greg Coonley
Yeah, I think number one would be internal relationships. That’s probably you know, if, if that’s one than the others are far down the list, I would say the ability to work cross functionally with different teams within organizations. Before bringing product to market. Forget about the conversations you’re having with products. Beckster current clients, if you don’t have, you know, the team dynamic set up to where things that you’re looking for the support you need, or the support you need to give is there, you know, then then really, it doesn’t matter, you’re not going to be able to achieve your goals, you’re not going to put forth a great product to sell, and create long lasting relationships. So, I always pride myself on my ability to have strong communication with those groups internally. And make sure you know, that goes above and beyond the functional roles that that we all serve and play in our day to day. So, you know, connecting people to people on a personal basis, and making sure that every conversation starts off with a with a good morning or Happy Friday. You know, and just having that spill over into our, our work life and our in our ability to kind of collaborate succeed. So that’s, that’s by far number one.

Christopher Smith
What’s number two?

Greg Coonley
Yeah, number two, I would say, and this is, this is a struggle for me. But I think as any salesperson or sales leader, it needs to find his sort of level of organization to play in your day, we have, you know, especially in in my role in my work, now, we’ve got 1000s of customers. And as much as you want to give that white glove service treatment to everybody. The reality is, you know, there’s that the 8020 rule, right, where your core clients are going to make up a large percentage of your business and a large, large percentage of your growth opportunity. And just understanding which emails in which tasks can be maybe put on hold for a little while, so that the more pressing and important things that need to be done can get done. And just structuring your day, as much as you can in a way that that you can balance those things. I mean, I think we all deal with the curveballs, the fire drills that that show up throughout the course of a day or a week that that you of course have to account for. But going into each day with a plan and understanding. Who am I speaking with? When are my meetings? You know, have I done all my prep work? Am I ready to go and have a conversation for maybe only 20 or 30 minutes with somebody that I might only get one shot at? And, you know, if I don’t have that prep work in that organization done ahead of time, then, then that’s unlikely to be a fruitful conversation.

Christopher Smith
What’s number three?

Greg Coonley
Yeah, I would say that number three is just making sure at the end of the day, everything that needs to be wrapped up is wrapped up, I think it sort of goes hand in hand with number two. But if you’re starting a day, where you haven’t closed your previous day properly, you’re probably spending the first 3060 minutes of that day, just tying up loose ends and trying to get your bearings. Again, because we have such a breadth of clients in our book of business, you know, there could be several outstanding things that if not tied up on are going to take away the focus from the next morning’s activities, that that may be more important, or that may require full 100% attention. And so, leaving the laptop or leaving the office, home office with a sense that those things are tied up for the day, and that I’m starting tomorrow with the ability to focus on where the focus needs to be for, for those conversations, or, you know, those meetings that are planned is certainly integral to anybody’s success.

Christopher Smith
I tell you, I’m listening to take in like, oh, man, it’s so true that if you don’t get those key things done, by the end of the day, your next day is already, obviously sabotage, but you’re starting off in a hard way. With that stuff hanging over.

Greg Coonley
Yeah, for sure. And I and I go back to coaching, I coached a little bit of high school basketball, in my time in Boston too. And, you know, you want to end a practice, you want to end a game, either with a conversation or with a drill or with, you know, a point to be made that will carry over and keep the momentum going. So, if you’re down by 20, or by 20, at the end of that game, you want to make sure that the last minute, you have two good possessions, or you know, you’re ending on a high note. And it’s no different in sales. I think if you’re if you’re 80% of the way through something and you don’t get that other 20% done, you’re never going to have the success that you’re looking for that next day. And in that team dynamic. Same way, you’re not going to be able to start that that new practice or the preparation for the next game. If you haven’t really moved on from the previous.

Christopher Smith
Oh, I love hearing how people got their start in sales because the answers have always been so varied. How’d you get your start?

Greg Coonley
Yeah, so I graduated in In 2009, at the height of the recession, and I took a job with Northwestern Mutual selling life insurance and investments, and I would say that bar none, best sales training a person possibly have the best I’ve ever seen from the six week intensive, everything from overcoming objections to phone language to different closing techniques just very, very thorough. The problem with that start was that I was 22 years old, and I was living at home. And I didn’t have necessarily the conviction, I needed to sit down at somebody’s kitchen table and explain to them or tell them that these are the financial solutions that you should be thinking about, or that you should be buying. When I was living at home, you know, upstairs in my parents’ house, with no bills, and no real-life experience. And so, I had all this great sales training, but I didn’t have that conviction, right, I didn’t have that feeling that I was providing value, because everybody I was speaking with, had already been through those life experiences, experiences that I did not have. So, they had bought and sold houses they had, you know, married had kids had different financial considerations, had speak spoken with different financial advisors in the past. And so, I didn’t feel within my heart that I was providing value in those conversations. And so probably seven or eight months into that career, I decided that sales really wasn’t for me and chose to go in a different direction. And so, I got back into it, I moved to Boston, where there’s a little bit more job opportunity. And I started in operations for the marketing company, really a publishing company, but in marketing, for TechTarget. And I did reporting and some client outreach, then sort of grew my career through that marketing and operations side of the business, where then took another [email protected]. And it was really a monster that I sort of got that sales button again. So, I was invited on several key client meetings, our sales reps felt that having another voice in the room that wasn’t on the sales side was really important, which to this day, I think is massive. But in these meetings, people would start turning to me, after maybe five or 10 minutes, you know, the salesperson would give their perfectly polished, hellish pitch with a great sales deck. But people wanted to know the numbers. They wanted to know the data; they want to know the quantitative analysis. And you know, what was really going on with our campaigns. And this is really at the height of when everything became trackable digitally, right. So, what are my clicks doing? Are my impressions turning into clicks? Are they turning into leads and sales down funnel? What can we be doing differently with our landing page, and, you know, all of those different elements and variables? And so, you know, I felt like I left those meetings thinking, I did a lot of the speaking I did, you know, the majority of the legwork there. And yet I’m you know, not reaping the salary and commission benefits that my counterparts are. So why not take another stab at this and move over to the sales side. And as part of a restructuring reorg the monster team created kind of the hunter and farmer model moves right into that farmer role kind of doing similar things, but also working on upsells and renewals. And then that kind of led to the 100 roles. And then eventually, as I moved over to business.com, and now centerfield media into a leadership position.

Christopher Smith
Let’s talk about that switched into leadership, what was behind that for you the core motivation to seek a leadership role?

Greg Coonley
Yeah, I think that’s it’s a lot of that. It’s a neat. I think, again, having you know, coached baseball and basketball, there’s a level of similarity that comes with both that profession and being you know, doing something as a hobby, in your spare time, and just, you know, getting the satisfaction. I wasn’t a great athlete, I played on my high school teams, but I certainly by no means was the best player. But I felt a lot more pride and a lot more enjoyment came out of the coaching aspect and leading others to be successful and kind of passing on some of the knowledge that I had learned and in retained, that helping, you know, our teams be able to gel together or helping individuals develop their skills. And so, on the work side, on the professional side, that sort of just translated, and I had in my mind for a while that that leadership was something I eventually aspired to. And, you know, the transition was not really something that I asked for, but something more so that maybe I was recognized for, and an opportunity that I took on a whole heartedly, but I think, you know, in the back of my mind, whether it be in sales or anything else, they always aspired to have some level of, or position of leader.

Christopher Smith
What was the best part about that transition for you shifting from salesperson to sales leader?

Greg Coonley
Yeah, I think, you know, the obvious comp, bump and all that is great, right. And, you know, we all want to be able to provide and do the things that we’d like to do outside of work. But really, it was the ability to gain more access to the decisions and the insight that was going into what made the business. So, working with leaders across functions, to not just meet with them on getting the operational work done, or the day to day stuff, but really driving strategy. And understanding, you know, the key decisions that can be made that are six, seven figure decisions that, you know, take a lot of teamwork and collaboration to be able to, to come to consensus. And those are, had previously been above my paygrade, I sort of, you know, took direction and went out and sold my book and did what I needed to do. But to be able to actually drive that strategy. And to be in those conversations, I think was probably the highlight of that initial transition.

Christopher Smith
What was the hardest part of making that shift?

Greg Coonley
Yeah, I think it’s always challenging when you get into leadership, especially for me, because I being the first time, you know, I’m coming from essentially a group of peers into an elevated role. And so, you know, on a peer level, right, you have your other sales reps that you’re working with, and then now all of a sudden, the dynamic has changed. So interpersonally, I think there’s some adjustments to be made there. But I think probably the thing that stands out as the in I’m sure this is referenced in time, but because sort of that loss of control, right, where you’re responsible now for an overall team member, or we’re a bigger number, even, that you don’t necessarily have as much sale, you do in driving the strategy for sure. But it still needs to be delivered on those on those sales calls. And so it took a little while for me to, you know, understand that I don’t need to be involved in every conversation, I can delegate, I can relax a little bit without having to stress over for each, you know, individual account and making sure that things were going the way that I had hoped that they would go because, you know, in aggregate, if we’re doing the right things as a team, and we’re driving the right strategy, then those things should be able to take care of themselves.

Christopher Smith
You mentioned about not, you know, figuring out that you have to You didn’t have to get that involved. That’s a common theme when I talk about this with sales leaders. So, is that something you figured out fairly easily? Or what did you have to learn it the hard way?

Greg Coonley
Yeah, I would say somewhere in between. I, first of all, I had a lot of faith in, in working with the people who are now on my team. I knew their level of experience, I knew their aptitude and what they were able to do on the phone and through client conversations and prospect conversations. So that wasn’t an issue for me at all. Moreso is on the issue of are we selling the right thing? Are we talking to the right person? Are we doing the things to set up those conversations to give us the best chance for success? And I think it was a little bit of trial and error. Right. I of course wanted to be involved in the conversations with a lot of the relationships that I had helped to grow or build. But at the end of the day, you know, our team has been in was at the time full of awesome sales reps in their own right. And they were more than capable of taking that on. So, I learned that pretty quickly. You know, there’s probably the feeling I’m sure from some of the team members that maybe I was a little bit over involved. But I needed to find that balance for myself. And I don’t think that there’s necessarily the perfect playbook for doing that without a little bit of trial and error.

Christopher Smith
And you have to find that middle spot, like you said that balance and the only way to find that is to go one way or the other too far. And then you realize who I need to, you know, back off or I need to engage more one or the other.

Greg Coonley
Yeah, and there’s definitely key times too, I mean, just thinking about certain prospects who are at maybe a VP level or they’re at an executive level that they may only want to speak to somebody who’s appear right and I’m not one for titles at all, but sometimes it does help where you know One of our reps would have had trouble getting through to, you know, a client contact or prospect contact of a certain company. And all it took was, hey, I’m bringing on our VP and you know, all of a sudden that that helps with conversation toward when the conversation so instances like that where it may make sense to become more involved. Certainly, comfortable with that. But as far as majority of the relationships go, and in the conversations go, you know, it’s really something that I can take myself out of and provide the guidance and the strategy where needed.

Christopher Smith
How do you leverage the losses as a learning opportunity?

Greg Coonley
Yeah, losses are always tough. I think being sort of from that analytical backgrounds. One of the things that helps keep perspective is understanding that it’s really a numbers game, if you understand, you know, your close rates, and your average order sizes and those metrics that build your business and get you to where your goals need to be, you know, that individual conversation that falls through or something that you had as 90% confidence that doesn’t get eight, it’s always going to be disappointing. But in the grand scheme of things, if you can keep that as just being one statistic as an overall part of the model. And think of it almost as that as a as a faceless number, it becomes a lot easier of a pill to swallow. The other thing that I think was a little bit challenging to, you know, going back even to the beginning of my sales career, in dealing with rejection was taking things personally. And for any new rep out there for any rep who still struggles with that that’s been doing it for a long time, it’s absolutely not personal. Those decisions are made on a ton of different levels, whether it be because you don’t have the right product, or it’s just not the right fit. You may not be speaking to the person who has the budget for which you’re really targeting. So, it’s not you, it’s just not a fit, and that’s okay. And, you know, for every two or three that aren’t a fit, maybe there’s two or three that are and so being able to bounce back quickly and not take it to heart is certainly a skill that comes with time but is very, I think important in my mind.

Christopher Smith
Now, for those of you listening, you can’t see what’s on the wall behind Greg, but I want to dive into this. He’s got some pretty interesting items up on his wall. Can you talk about it? I’ll spill the beans here. He’s got some flags with some pretty famous golf courses up on his wall. Do you leverage golf as part of your sales process?

Greg Coonley
Not as much now with the pandemic of course that’s waned, but even before that, because at centerfield and previous business comm we had so many clients and we were, you know, spread so thin that in person visits and get togethers weren’t as common in the past with Monster absolutely something that we leverage a lot at either shows or we’re just, you know, going directly to clients by playing golf or having dinner. So, I’m a five handicap which is solid, there’s pretty solid, yeah, there’s far better out there but the flies behind me, Pinehurst Innisbrook, I think I have Bethpage black there. And I Bay Hill, which I went to last year, I tried to get a flag from every golf course that hosts a regular PGA tournament or a major. So, I’m trying to grow my collection as much as I can adding a flag or two each year. But hopefully, we’ll be able to fill this entire room up when it’s all said and done.

Christopher Smith
Tip a crazy story from when you’re out with a client on a golf course.

Greg Coonley
Ah, nothing too crazy. I mean, it runs the gamut. You’ll play golf with clients and prospects that are much better than you and then you’ll play golf with people who have no business being a golfer. Or maybe not even a driving range for that matter. Where you kind of have to grin and bear it right through. There’s no playing through. There’s no you know, leaving after nine holes because I don’t feel great. It’s five hours of torture, but you’re doing that to build the relationship right so nothing stands out. I don’t think anybody fell in a lake or a pond.

Christopher Smith
Nobody threw their golf clubs into the pond.

Greg Coonley
Nothing, nothing too bad but I love it as a tool. I think you know, the more you can create that. That one-on-one interaction off, you know, outside of the office, outside of PowerPoint outside of zoom. I’m always in advocate for that, I think it’s been a great tool for me to help attract and win business in the past, and I played a little bit in, in high school in college. And so, you know, I didn’t have to, to learn as part of being the, the, the sales, you know, person, it just was something that I already had an toolbelt. So, yeah, anytime I’m traveling, you know, if I can, I’ll try to stay an extra day and play the famous course, if it’s available, but absolutely love meeting people on the golf course,

Christopher Smith
you know, one of the things I love about that is you really get to see who they really are. Because when you start golf, there’s no way you can fake it for four hours or more, especially if you know, the keeps going, well, you know, you’re really gonna see who that person is,

Greg Coonley
for sure. And you also don’t necessarily have to talk business afterwards, and you’re grabbing a drink, or you could fill out the conversation and maybe on the second hole, they, you know, they start asking your business questions, it really gives you a length of time and medium to be able to feel things out right, and to get to know the person that you’re that you’re attempting to work with, or that you’re trying to grow with. And, you know, if they don’t want to talk at all, and want to keep it just light and have fun, then then it’s definitely just building rapport. And if it does turn a business, you’re ready to do that as well. But it’s just more relaxed, it’s a great way to sort of discuss those topics over the course of, you know, five hours on a nice setting, rather than being jammed up in a in a conference room and not having to stick to the script.

Christopher Smith
Do you try to teach that kind of a cadence to yourself to your younger sales team? And I know, when you’re first starting to sales, everyone wants to be very aggressive and close those deals. But that can shoot you in the foot more often than not. And so how do you teach that level of patience, and rapport building and in, you know, more of a natural flow to sales?

Greg Coonley
Yeah, I think rather than doing it explicitly, probably a little bit more by example, when we’re on calls together, you know, LinkedIn is a great tool, whether I can find a commonality with the college or the area that somebody is from, or where they’ve worked before, I always want to start there. If I have to give up 10 minutes of a 30-minute meeting, to put a face to the name and really dive into who they are, then then I’m always willing to make that sacrifice. For me, selfishly, it just makes that person easier to remember. And it’ll help with the mental Rolodex. But be hopefully it makes me stand out as a person who, who they can remember and know that they built some level of rapport with and that they can trust and want to speak to again, but I would say, you know, as far as teaching that or, or mandating that it’s more of kind of, here’s my style. And if you like it, and it feels natural to you, then then it’s something to adopt. But regardless, I think feeling people out and understanding how they tick is the psychology is really important. So, it starts as simple as what is their title, right. So, if you have, you know, the associate marketing manager, they’re going to be an influencer, they’re going to be rolling up to somebody else. So, make sure that the collateral that you leave behind is easily digested digestible for their boss or their boss’s boss, for the C level person that might not have a lot of time. You know, you want to get right, right to the conversation, usually, you know, within for me to three minutes if a person is open to kind of chatting, and, and just building that rapport if they want to get right down to it. And I think being able to match that style as sort of chameleon is really important. So, if somebody is directed within 30 seconds, they’re asking about pricing, you know, I’m going to be directing my responses. But vice versa, if somebody is, you know, open to talking a little bit more or opening up about themselves or their past experiences or, you know, a common coworker that we may have had. I’m all for that as well.

Christopher Smith
CRM, do you love it? Or do you hate it?

Greg Coonley
love hate relationship?

Christopher Smith
Number one answer.

Greg Coonley
Yeah, love hate relationship. I think I think CRM is necessary, right? Of course, there’s got to be a central place where for all that information to live. I think my perspective is a bit unique in that our company has been rebranded or acquired about three or four times since I started. And so, our CRM has been a melting pot of several different groups or lists of clients and prospects and contacts. So, there’s Got a lot of duplication and, and cleanup work that that has to have been done there over time, which I think we’re in a great place now. But yeah, I mean, I think it is what you make of it. So, if you’re diligent about call notes, which admittedly, I’m not, you know, I need to get better at that for myself. And it’s something that I impress upon with my team too. But the tools are there. I mean, I think, you know, from a reporting standpoint, understanding pipeline, understanding the key metrics behind closed rates and average sales cycle, if you put in the data, it’ll give you back the data as information that you can really use as a, as a key tool to guide your process decision making. And, and so as much as I, you know, sometimes struggle or will curse out the CRM for, you know, little, little things or, or bugs or, or logic that’s built in that, you know, I may not have all the answers to, it’s certainly a tool that I lean on a ton to be able to keep everything organized in to drive the sales process forward.

Christopher Smith
Other than, you know, the issue, you mentioned about the data. And, you know, mainly driven through the acquisitions. What’s the biggest struggle that you’ve experienced with CRM over your career?

Greg Coonley
Yeah, it’s great question. I think we have a lot of custom solutions at centerfield. So, when we were at business, Comm, operating just on the b2b side, we had sales, qualified leads, marketing, qualified leads, and click traffic that we could sell. And so, everything that we did fell under one of those buckets. And at center fields, where we’re able to basically support marketing and customer acquisition from A to Z, where we have sale center that actually sells both b2c and b2b services, there are a lot more custom types of projects and solutions that we can offer to the market. And so sometimes, when you have that level of customization, they don’t, those programs don’t necessarily fit into the predefined, selects or options that that a CRM has, and so inputting it can be a challenge for one, I’m not really sure, maybe necessarily if this is going to be a lead opportunity, or full, full opportunity, sponsorship. But on the backside of that is pulling reporting and understanding. Where is my pipeline? And what product is it aligned to? Sometimes that’s, that’s not always as clean as maybe it would be in the past. So, it really it takes patience for sure. And collaboration, we have one of the best Salesforce administrators I’ve ever worked with, easily the best, and just floating ideas out there. What if we, you know, change this field? Or what if we added this logic to be able to help make those headaches? Go away as much as possible, but I don’t think any business has a perfect process for how they utilize their CRM. I think it’s an evolving discussion as products get developed as targets change, as you know, m&a has happened so I’m happy. There’re days when there’s moments where are you know, I’m not thrilled with what’s going on, but certainly it’s a necessary evil.

Christopher Smith
Yeah, yeah, I agree. We’re coming up on our time here on sales lead dog. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Greg. If people want to reach out connect with you, they want to learn more about centerfield media. What’s the best way for them to do that?

Greg Coonley
There? I would say either email. She Coonley c o n le [email protected]. Or just on LinkedIn. Send me a LinkedIn message, be happy to respond, reach out and set up some time to have a conversation. But yeah, I would say email or LinkedIn will be great.

Christopher Smith
Awesome. Well, thanks again for coming on Sales Lead Dog.

Greg Coonley
I appreciate it. Thanks, Christopher.

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 Empellor CRM, delivering objectively better CRM for business guaranteed.

 

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