0:01
Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith.
0:09
Talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack.
0:13
Listen to find out how the best of the best achieved success with their team and CRM technology.
0:20
And remember, unless you were the lead dog, the view never changes.
0:26
Welcome to sales lead dog.
0:28
In today’s episode, I have joining me Randy Johnston.
0:31
Randy is the vice President of channel sales or PDI Technologies.
0:38
Randy, welcome to sales lead dog.
0:40
Well, thank you, Chris.
0:41
It’s a pleasure to be here.
0:42
Thanks for having me.
0:43
So tell me a bit about PDI technologies.
0:46
What do you guys do?
0:48
PDI Technologies is a worldwide leader in the area of communication, convenience and connectivity.
0:57
So if you think of companies out there that have very distributed environments, Shell Oil stations, you know, 7-11, QuikTrip, different franchises, they all have one thing in common and that is that it’s a very distributed environment.
1:15
So you could have an auto dealership, for example, in Denver where you are, Tampa where I am, those auto dealerships may be owned independently.
1:27
They may be owned by the parent company, General Motors, for example.
1:33
The idea is, is that that particular individual who runs that location, they don’t care about security.
1:41
I mean, they do obviously the parent company is very concerned about security, but in, in the grand scheme of things, they want to run their business and they want to run their business in the most secure way without them having to constantly think about who’s managing this, who’s monitoring this, you know, I’m being protected, blah, blah, blah.
2:02
So what PDI Technologies does is it enables those those individual locations to conveniently connect into the parent company’s network and always remain secure.
2:18
So there’s several different suite of products that PDI it, it provides them point of sale.
2:29
GasBuddy, I don’t know if you’ve ever used that app, but GasBuddy is a huge consumer product that’s owned by PDI Technologies and so that’s what we do.
2:41
The part that I’m most familiar with is on the security side.
2:45
So I work for a company called Newspire.
2:47
Newspire was a 25 year old managed Security Service provider and and we were acquired by PDI Technologies about six months ago, something like that.
3:02
So it’s a great fit because you have PDI providing all of these point of sale firewall as a service, you know, different things like that.
3:12
Now you can put Nuspire into the mix and Nuspire is going to provide managed detection and response and point detection and response.
3:21
So it overlays over the top of the PDI service portfolio and allows everybody to, to actually communicate and, and, and connect in a secure way.
3:32
That’s what we, which is, yeah, it’s again, I what I was listening to thinking this is all this stuff we never think about.
3:38
But man, we rely on it all the time and we expect it to be there when we need it.
3:44
Because especially for your customers, if that stuff’s not working, their business isn’t working, they’re not making any money.
3:49
Correct.
3:50
Yeah, 100%, yeah.
3:52
There’s nothing like pulling into, you know, a convenience store or something like that.
3:57
And then you see that sign in the window that said sorry for the inconvenience, but we’re down for whatever reason.
4:04
And and it could be because they got compromised in some way.
4:09
And you know, if they have to shut things down and do everything manual.
4:14
So a lot of those companies, instead of going the manual route, they’ll just shut down and wait for the parent company to kind of fix it.
4:22
So we’ve been very fortunate to have such great customers out there that really rely on us.
4:28
Yeah, that’s awesome.
4:30
Randy, when you think back over your career, you’ve been doing this for a while.
4:34
What are the three things, if you could sum it up into three that have really driven and led to the success you’ve had in your career?
4:41
Oh boy.
4:43
Well, the success I’ve had in my career.
4:46
Well, thank you for taking a little liberty there, Chris.
4:48
But the, I would say that I can boil it down to these three.
4:54
I think the first and foremost is you are always looking at ways that you can promote the people that work for you ahead of you, if that makes sense, to, to make sure that they have a, a ladder.
5:14
I, I hate to use that term, but the ladder of success, if you will, that you’re pulling them up alongside you and then kind of given them a boost.
5:25
Because, I mean, let’s face it, we’re all going to be off that ladder at some point.
5:29
And so you want to make sure that those people are more equipped than maybe you were.
5:36
I’d say the second thing is, is that you hear this all the time.
5:39
When people go into a sales situation, they’re always talking about, well, I’m a very consultative salesperson.
5:44
Maybe, you know, I think that consultative sales is, is a very broad term and consultative sales is something very important.
5:54
I’ve always thought that an advocate, a customer advocate was taking that to a completely different level.
6:02
So you think about if you go into a customer, even this, the businesses that you work with on a daily basis, to have a customer advocate, somebody who is working for that company on your behalf.
6:17
And, and not to say that, you know, if you want something that’s unheard of or something that’s unreasonable, but that particular person goes to the to the, to their manager or to their company and advocates for something that they know is never going to get past.
6:34
There’s there, But there’s a fine line, right?
6:36
They want to be your, they want to be your advocate because that’s something that you’re always going to remember the customer service that they brought, but at the same time, you’re not paying their paycheck.
6:48
So they have to make that real fine balance of OK, Chris, I’m going to help you as best I can, but let’s be reasonable here.
6:56
This has got to be kind of a give and take.
6:58
So I would definitely say that that was that was second and I might even put that one in one.
7:06
A I’d say that the third piece is, is that you’re always looking at ways that you can help those particular customers look at ways that they can say maybe they didn’t actually think about ways that they could implement your product or use your service or those kind of things.
7:27
But when you have conversations at the highest level within companies, they are interested in something way different than somebody who might be at a director or a manager level.
7:38
So you have to have those kind of conversations at the top, and you have to have those conversations, let’s just say, more tactical at the bottom.
7:47
But when you’re talking to somebody at the sea level, for example, this is something that I’ve always found, You probably have found this as well.
7:56
They’re always looking at ways that you can increase or improve their day.
8:01
So let’s say I call you, I say, hey, Chris, let’s go out and have lunch.
8:06
If in the past, you and I have had lunch and when you walk away from our lunch meeting, you go, you know what?
8:13
That was valuable time well spent.
8:15
That was an I got an ROI out of my time.
8:20
Chances are the next time I call you, you’re going to say, hey, Randy, let’s get together.
8:24
You’re going to be a lot more willing to accept that invitation.
8:29
And I can always tell when it didn’t go well because when I call them and say, hey, you want to have lunch again, almost invariably do.
8:37
They say I can’t do it, but I have somebody on my staff that can.
8:43
And as soon as you get that kind of push down, you know that something didn’t go right in the last call.
8:49
And you know, if you if you’re a seasoned professional, as you walk away, you know that that was kind of maybe a little clunky.
8:58
Something didn’t kind of land exactly right when you were trying to communicate something to them.
9:04
So I would say an ROI on their time is going to be invaluable.
9:09
So before you sit down and talk to somebody that may be either at your level or even higher than your level, make sure that you come very well equipped with something that is going to add value to their day.
9:20
And I would say those are the top three things for me personally.
9:25
Yeah, No, I like that.
9:30
Thinking back to the early days, did you always want to be in sales or did you have a different vision for your career?
9:35
100% did not want to go into sales.
9:38
I was, I was pushed into it by a family member.
9:43
This particular family member was kept saying you need to go into sales, you need to go into sales.
9:49
And I would always boil it down to Leah, let me get this straight.
9:52
If I sell something, I make a little bit of money and if I don’t sell anything, I’m out.
9:58
And it kind of came down to, in my mind anyway, something that easy to to distinguish.
10:07
It’s not quite like that at all, as everybody that’s been in sales kind of knows.
10:12
But yeah, I was definitely pushed into it.
10:14
Glad I made the move for 100%.
10:17
I’ve got two sons and both of them were kind of following in the, you know, the sales path.
10:25
So we’ll see what happens with them.
10:27
But did they ever tell you why they thought you should go into sales?
10:32
I think it was so I would get out of the house.
10:34
No, I think it we need to get him out of here.
10:38
What do we do?
10:40
And this guy talks.
10:42
I would, I would just say that I, I kind of had this idea or I had this personality that people like it or not, you know, they kind of gravitated too.
10:54
Because you kind of have a little bit of a, you have a little bit of, of understanding or knowledge, whatever you want to call it, about little things.
11:06
So you can always find something that you have common with the person that you’re meeting with.
11:12
So it, you know, you, I wouldn’t suggest that you go into sales if you have a real hard time walking into a room where you know absolutely nobody and you just kind of stand there going, there’s absolutely no way that I’m going to walk up and start talking to somebody that I don’t know.
11:31
And you know, that kind of thing.
11:32
That’s probably not the profession that I would recommend, and that was not the same with me.
11:39
I could always find something, some common ground that we kind of talk about, and then from there just kind of developed into a relationship.
11:47
Yeah, you just described me.
11:49
I don’t know, 10-15, maybe 20 years ago, 15 to 20 years ago.
11:54
Like I go to a conference or whatever, go in the room.
11:57
I don’t know anybody.
11:58
I’m the guy against the wall in the corner sitting at a table by himself because just I am naturally painfully shy.
12:06
And the only way I could get over that is I now I talk to everybody.
12:10
We’re on an elevator.
12:12
You I’m getting to know you as that 30 seconds.
12:15
We’re on the elevator together, check out line, whatever.
12:19
I’m talking to everybody.
12:22
And that’s how I was able to get over it.
12:23
The people now are like, you were never shy.
12:27
And I’m like, no, I actually, I really am.
12:30
But I knew like, if I’m going to be successful doing what I’m doing, I have to learn how to talk to people.
12:36
That’s interesting.
12:36
So did you consciously make an effort to, OK, so I’m going to walk into this room.
12:41
I’m going to just find people.
12:42
I’m just going to start talking to people.
12:44
I’m just going to go up and start talking to people.
12:45
It’s scary, super scary to start with.
12:47
But you know what it was is I, I worked with a guy that he was that guy that he could talk to anybody.
12:56
And I’m like, I need to be like him.
12:59
And so I just started emulating him.
13:01
And then I have another brother-in-law who is just, everybody just loves him to death because he’s another one of those people that just says hi to everybody, hugs everybody.
13:11
Just super, super nice guy.
13:14
And people just gravitate to him.
13:15
Like I need to be.
13:16
Those two people were my role models.
13:18
Oh, that’s awesome.
13:19
Yeah.
13:20
And yeah, ’cause it’s like you, you can, I think, you know, it’s something that you can learn.
13:27
It’s a skill, you can develop it like anything else, you have to commit to it.
13:31
Sure.
13:32
Yeah.
13:32
Now I will say this to Chris, and I’m sure you, you’ve found this out.
13:36
I had a a sales manager years ago.
13:40
And one of the things that he had taught me was you could have the gift of gab.
13:45
Let’s say you could walk into a room like you just described there, start talking to anybody.
13:51
You’re in the checkout line, turn around, just start talking.
13:53
Find some some topic that you could discuss, you know, in a 32nd blurb does not mean that you’re going to be successful in sales because it’s the the problem that I had was I could talk to anybody like you could just describe and find something that we could talk about.
14:11
But I never could ask that really difficult question at the end, like, hey, Chris, you know, I like talking to you, man, this is so much fun.
14:21
I like coming to Denver.
14:22
We have a great time.
14:24
When are you going to buy something?
14:26
Because if you don’t, I can’t keep doing this.
14:29
No, you’re just wasting time.
14:31
Right.
14:31
Exactly.
14:32
That’s the next level.
14:34
Like, to me, when I talk about, that’s just the very, very beginning, You know, you’re taking a, in my mind, a small step forward.
14:41
You’ve got to be able to have a strategy, a path to get to that goal.
14:47
Otherwise you’re just wasting people’s time.
14:49
You’re wasting your time.
14:49
You’re wasting their time.
14:51
Yeah, I’ll tell you what’s funny is you kind of hit on something right?
14:55
There was when you were saying that I kind of made or you made this conscious effort to just walk into rooms and start talking to people and that would get you over it.
15:05
What I ended up doing was I would always think about this account that I’m working with and this particular account, I’ll just make it up, right?
15:16
But this particular account I would add, OK, the end goal for this particular account is for them to buy some service or some product, right?
15:25
And then I would start backing up that if they were going to purchase this by middle of June, then they would have to complete APOC by the middle of May.
15:39
And I would start backing up.
15:41
And then I would share this.
15:43
I got to a point where it was just written down on a piece of paper.
15:46
I’d start backing up, putting dates next to it and do everything that I could to hit those dates.
15:52
But then what I started to do was I started to share that with my customer and say, look, this is what I have for me.
16:02
Tell me how this aligns for your goals.
16:06
And if it doesn’t align at all, we need to either make some hopefully not major changes, maybe a minor correction here or there.
16:15
But as long as they were agreeing to the timeline that all the steps that I had put in there, then it became so much easier because you would always go back to that piece of paper or spreadsheet, whatever you’re using and say, Hey, didn’t we have this and, and, and agreed upon by this date and so on and so forth.
16:35
This seems to be slipping a little bit.
16:37
And then it wasn’t a close at all.
16:40
You never.
16:41
So I think a lot of people kind of get really intimidated when you tell them, I need you to go close this account.
16:49
If they haven’t done all the right steps, yes, it is intimidating.
16:54
But if they’ve done everything up until that point, then it’s just a conversation and all that.
16:59
So, yeah, you still have to do the work.
17:01
There’s no magic wands, 100%.
17:04
And there’s, you know that when you leave the account, the guy who follows you in from your competitor, guess what?
17:10
He’s got the gift of gab too.
17:12
So yeah, yeah.
17:14
No, it’s I, you know, my world implementing CRM.
17:18
Lot of people come to us like, I need new CRM.
17:21
Why?
17:22
Well, you know, we’re not closing deals, blah, blah, blah.
17:25
I’m like, it’s not CRM out there that fixes bad process, right?
17:29
You’re not doing the work.
17:30
If you’re not doing what you need to do to sell, CRM is not going to help you.
17:33
Yeah, yeah.
17:34
I mean, if there was a tool that would help, I would buy a golf.
17:37
I’d buy new Golf clubs every week.
17:39
Oh, yeah, no kidding.
17:40
You know, it’s like CRM can support you.
17:43
It can help in so many ways, but it it’s not good, you know, it’s not a magic wand.
17:49
You know, you still have to have process.
17:51
You still have to have a plan you still left out have a value, a value for your, for your customer, whatever it’s you’re trying to sell.
17:59
Yeah, you, you can’t.
18:00
All that stuff matters.
18:02
Yeah, 100%.
18:04
Yeah.
18:05
So tell me about your transition into leadership.
18:08
Was that something, again, that you sought out or were like how you got into sales where you tapped on the shoulder?
18:14
You know, I didn’t, I didn’t really want to get into leadership at the beginning.
18:22
The first leadership role that I took was because the, the person who was above me in this particular case, they got promoted.
18:35
And so their manager came to me and said, your manager just recommended you for this role.
18:42
And, and I, I think anybody who gets kind of pushed into a leadership position without actually seeking it out proactively, I think they can become very intimidated just with the pressure of it all.
18:57
Because you start looking around at your team and you’re, you think to yourself, well, all these people know me for like the salesperson that I am just like they are.
19:10
And what makes them think that when they get the next time we go to a team meeting that they’re going to sit around and go, yeah, I’m going to learn something from this guy.
19:20
And so I think you can become very intimidated just because of the, the, the relationship and the familiarity that your team members have to towards you.
19:32
So it, it, it wasn’t something that I sought out at all.
19:38
But after doing it for a little while and then kind of seeing the growth of some of the people that were on my team, some of the successes that had this kind of led to both personal and professional, it became a real passion.
19:54
I started.
19:55
Then after that, I really started seeking those kind of roles and those kind of responsibilities where there were people that were kind of looking to you.
20:06
Yeah, imposter syndrome is very real and I think it’s very natural.
20:11
What, was there a single moment or was it a series of events that helped you work through that and get to the point where you had that confidence as a leader?
20:20
Yeah, there was this, one of the very first sales roles that I took, the manager that I was telling you about, they got promoted.
20:31
So we’re sitting there.
20:33
I probably had been in the position now for a week.
20:38
That was very, very early on.
20:40
And this particular manager had told me, OK, now that I’m at this level, this is what my expectations are from the group.
20:48
So I’m going to need you to kind of make sure that the group meets those expectations.
20:54
And the first thing that I want you to do is let this individual go.
20:58
And I’m thinking, why would I do that?
21:02
And he’s like, well, he’s definitely underperforming, blah, blah, blah, and kind of lays this out.
21:07
And I said, look, I think that there’s two major issues that you’re probably not thinking about #1 And just kind of told him I’m going to look like a hatchet guy if it in one week I come in and start, you know, cutting.
21:24
I really, yeah, I really don’t want to do that.
21:27
Number 2, I think that the reason that this particular person is not performing is because.
21:32
And I had to be very careful because the I think the one of the one of the factors that went into this underperformance was the fact that he wasn’t getting anything from his former manager.
21:45
Well, guess what?
21:45
His former manager is now is now your.
21:50
So I had to be very careful.
21:52
I said little dance you have to do, Larry.
21:54
Yeah.
21:55
Teaches you some diplomacy, that’s for sure.
21:58
So Long story short, I was able to keep this person the my manager to his credit, said, OK, well it’s your team, we’ll let you go with it.
22:09
And this person actually made it to President’s Club the next year.
22:14
And I just remember when we were at President’s Club, he had take, he and his wife had kind of pulled me aside and just kind of express their gratitude on my patience in in sticking with them.
22:31
And he actually became probably one of our top performers in the group for the many years that he was there.
22:40
And then I went off and did something else.
22:44
It wasn’t a storybook ending.
22:46
It wasn’t like I went off and did something else.
22:48
And then he assumed my role wasn’t anything like that.
22:51
I think he just liked to be, you know, a, an individual contributor.
22:56
But the fact that he was able to kind of rescue his career if he will, I thought that was pretty cool.
23:02
So leadership Randy, that that’s a great example of, in my opinion of leadership.
23:09
And I’ve had many of my guests here on Sales Lead Dog talk about this.
23:14
You know, we talk about people that are under for performing.
23:16
And the common theme that I’ve heard is that you never know what’s going on behind the scenes.
23:24
You have to find out.
23:26
You have to talk to them.
23:26
You can’t just assume that everything’s perfect in their life and they’re underperforming just because they suck.
23:33
No idea what’s going on.
23:35
And you need to engage, you have to have some vulnerability, you have to build rapport, you have to mentor, you have to do all those things that a good leader does.
23:43
You still may end up at the same place where, look, it’s just not a fit.
23:47
And you have to let them go to find something that is a good fit.
23:50
Yeah, I that’s, that’s, that’s really good insight and I appreciate you saying that.
23:55
I, I’ve always thought that.
23:57
And, you know, you get these big teams.
23:59
I’m not a huge big team person.
24:00
I think that the largest team that I had managed was 17 people or something, and the smallest was 2-3, something like that.
24:10
But regardless of the size, to your point, the team is made-up of individuals.
24:16
And I think the mistake that a lot of people make is they manage the team and that’s fine, but what makes up that team is individuals.
24:24
And so you have to manage each individual different.
24:27
This person is going to get rewarded most if you recognize them in front of the whole group.
24:35
Well, that may not work for this person over here.
24:37
They want money.
24:38
They, they, they like to be rewarded with something monetary, something tangible, that kind of thing.
24:43
So you have to be able to really understand what motivates people, what keeps people moving in the same direction because you know, there, there’s a, there’s a, a story that I won’t even go into.
24:57
But the, the basic jest of it is, is that if everybody is building towards the same vision, there’s very little that can knock that off.
25:08
I mean, you can really try to derail this, but if everybody has the same vision, it is been proven time and time again, it is very difficult to keep that from from taking place, from accomplishing that goal.
25:24
What role, what role is mentorship played in the success you’ve had in your career?
25:30
I, I love the fact that there are people who look to you as a, as the leader of the team and they have aspirations far beyond this thing that they have called a job.
25:48
And so being able to really understand what does that actually mean to you and what keeps you coming here?
25:56
Everybody has, you know, they all like the paycheck and I get all that because you have to have that to, to live so, but you can get a job.
26:07
I mean, let’s face it, I should say you can get a job any anytime you want.
26:12
Maybe not in today’s economy, but you get what I mean.
26:16
They, they, they could find something that was probably more fulfilling than what you are providing.
26:26
But I think the idea of mentorship is why don’t you provide that fulfillment where they are today and give them a good career path on where they want to go tomorrow and just make it fulfilling all the way across.
26:40
And that’s really difficult to do in my opinion.
26:43
You can’t mentor everyone.
26:45
I mean, to sit there and say, I’ve got a team of people, I’m going to be mentor to all of them.
26:52
That’s that’s impossible.
26:53
And, and why would you want to spread yourself that then you’re going to miss on something on someone, then it’s just going to come across as being, to be honest with you, it kind of comes across as being insincere.
27:07
But if you can really hone in on those people that you feel, oh, they’ve got so much talent and so much ability and all you got to do is just kind of bring that to the surface.
27:18
I think that’s the most rewarding piece about leadership.
27:21
No, Yeah.
27:22
It’s as I’m listening, I’m thinking, heck, it’s the same way.
27:25
When you’re selling, you have to pick who you’re going to focus on.
27:28
You can’t treat every deal the same.
27:30
That’s exactly right.
27:30
You know, you have to pick and choose where you’re going to devote your time so you have the most impact.
27:36
But when you’re selling, it’s on your pipeline.
27:38
When you’re a leader, it’s on developing your people.
27:42
Yeah, 100%.
27:43
People are in different places.
27:45
You know, you have to meet them where they are and, and, and give them what they need in that moment.
27:50
Yeah, exactly.
27:51
And and I think the other thing, you hit this off at the very beginning, my current role, and I’ve been, you know, in channels for a while, channel sales is way different than direct, way different.
28:06
And that was actually my next question for you.
28:09
How is it different for those?
28:10
And the reason I asked some people like, well, what does that mean?
28:13
Even channel sales explain how channel sales is different from direct.
28:18
I think that’d be pretty interesting to our listeners.
28:20
If channel sales is you are motivating a sales organization or a sales team that does not work for you.
28:29
They have absolutely no affiliation with you.
28:32
There’s you can’t motivate them with the stick.
28:36
You have to motivate them with the carrot, but you also have to motivate them in different ways.
28:42
The best thing when I first started in sales, this is I, I think about this all the time.
28:49
When I first started in sales, I was a direct seller for the Southeast and I moved into channel sales, not buy anything that I went after proactively.
29:04
An opportunity came up.
29:06
My current manager had went to the vice president of channels for the Americas and said I’ve got a person here that I think would do well.
29:15
So I’ve been in the direct sales organization for five years at that time and I went to President’s Club five years in a row.
29:24
So I was looked at within the organization as a large company within security and I was looked at as, you know, pretty consistent and somebody who’s going to make the Achievers trip, President’s Club, whatever every year.
29:41
And then the next year, I become the channel Rep for the whole SE and almost got fired.
29:47
And I remember my, my, my, this was the light bulb moment.
29:53
We were in Orlando at this huge conference and the conference was made-up of only one customer and that was my largest customer.
30:03
But they had a huge trade show.
30:05
So they would bring in all of their vendors, all of their, you know, people that they work with.
30:10
And then everybody within the company would kind of come around and they would say, what do you do for us?
30:15
And so on and so forth.
30:17
I had established some really good relationships there at a very high levels and people were coming by.
30:23
So we’re driving back to the hotel and I remember my my manager, he says to me, he goes, hey, these guys that we were at, you know what their budget is for security next year.
30:38
I rattle it off like that.
30:40
He goes, OK, and how much of their budget do you think they’re going to spend with us?
30:45
I rattle it off like that.
30:47
I’m thinking to myself, keep firing away these questions, buddy, because I’m going to nail every single one.
30:51
I know this real well.
30:53
He goes, so the guy that came over at the end, that was the vice president of information security.
31:00
Do you know what his wife’s name is?
31:03
I’m like, no, you know where his kids go to school?
31:07
No, you know what his hobbies are on the weekend?
31:11
No.
31:12
And he goes, that guy that was standing next to him all night, the channel Rep, he does.
31:20
And it, the light bulb went off because my manager was like, look, you may understand all the business aspects and that’s great.
31:29
But the guy who is really your advocate in this whole thing is him because he knows all the, the, the, the personal things.
31:38
So if you collaborate with the channel person with your knowledge of the professional side, you 2 together will have an amazing partnership.
31:50
And the hard part is if you’re a direct seller is to get out of the car, hand the steering wheel, get the the channel partner in the driver’s seat and you go around and sit in the passenger side and you just have to fold your arms and go however fast you go.
32:07
However, to whatever direction you go, I’m OK with as long as we get to the destination safely and on time.
32:17
And then you just let him do it.
32:20
That’s really hard to do because as a direct seller, you want to take control of the car, you want to drive it when it’s close to the end of the quarter, you want to be able to go in there and say, look, guys, I need this deal in order to make my number.
32:36
And if the channel Rep doesn’t do that for you, you’re saying they’re going, man, do your job.
32:41
The hell, that’s not his job.
32:43
And so you have to be able to really understand what motivates them and then let them do it.
32:49
Now you are their coach and all that kind of stuff.
32:53
You’re not going to let them drive the far over a Cliff to use that other analogy, but you have to let them drive it and you have to let them have as much, you know, flexibility as as possible because that’s what makes them successful.
33:07
So and we have quite a few customers that sell through channels that yes.
33:13
And it is, is a totally different animal in terms of how we implement CRM for them because they’re not tracking a pipeline like direct does.
33:25
Other people have their pipelines, they’re trying to help other people fill their pipeline.
33:30
So that deal flow comes eventually through to, to them.
33:34
And it is a totally different animal in, you know, and it, it’s in my mind, it’s, it’s, you really have to know who your real customer is, you know, and it’s a different kind of customer, you know, then the end person who might ultimately be buying your product, you know, and, and, and your role in the selling process is very different 100%.
33:59
And, you know, sometimes Chris, the, the, the end user, the end customer will put you in a really difficult position because sometimes the end customer will sit there and say, listen, I know we’ve been buying through these guys and we’ve been doing it for years and years.
34:14
But if we buy direct from you, how much money can we actually save?
34:19
The worst thing you can do as a channel Rep or channel manager is go.
34:24
Well, if you do it by Friday, I’ll cut you a deal.
34:28
And then you think to yourself, I’m going to run it through the channel partner anyway, so they’ll be fine.
34:33
No, they will not.
34:34
That is a definite no, no.
34:37
In channel sales.
34:38
You have to be able to hold your ground and tell that customer, why would we do that?
34:43
That’s that we we’re not going to jeopardize or undercut our existing channel.
34:49
You just can’t do that.
34:50
So you have to be able to stand up and say it’s going to go through them.
34:54
Whatever the price is, that’s the price.
34:57
So yeah, it’s very different, but I love it.
35:00
I think it’s really rewarding.
35:02
I’ve done channel sales now for maybe the last, I don’t know, 3 or 4, you know, companies that I’ve I’ve worked for.
35:10
I I don’t, I can’t, couldn’t see myself going back on to the direct side because you I don’t know, yeah, I just like it.
35:19
Yeah, just found.
35:20
That’s interesting.
35:20
That’s really cool.
35:22
Randy, shifting gears a little bit CRM, do you love it or do you hate it?
35:31
Is that the end of the podcast?
35:32
Can we cut hurt my feelings either way, dude, it’s you know, CRM is I would say CRM is kind of middle for me because I love it sometimes is because of the information that you’re able to extract.
35:50
I hate it because the information that I’m able to extract is put in by me or the team members.
35:58
So it’s a definite love hate relationship.
36:02
I’m sure you hear that all the time.
36:04
That’s actually the most common answer I think I get is it’s in the middle.
36:08
Depends.
36:09
They’re like, depends on what day and what time of the day, you know?
36:12
Yeah, Exactly.
36:14
Yeah.
36:15
I mean, it doesn’t matter, you know, to me.
36:17
I’ve used a number of different ones and some of them have different capabilities and some of them have different user interfaces and so on.
36:27
The whole idea is, look, the information that you’re going to get out is only as good as the information that you put in.
36:34
And yes, if you’re not a very detailed person, I love the story that you said where you have to make yourself, you had to make yourself more open to a conversation.
36:44
I had to make myself more detail oriented.
36:48
I mean, it was a joke early on in my career how bad I was.
36:55
It just the details of things and I would just expect it just kind of take care of itself.
37:01
And I kept thinking, well, if I have all my forecast stuff, can I just lay it on top of my laptop and just gets, you know, through osmosis, but didn’t work that way.
37:12
So it detailed.
37:14
Yeah.
37:14
You know, it’s funny, I I get asked all the time, like, hey, what do you think of the CRM or whatever?
37:22
And it’s funny, especially the last year or so, my definition of CRM is really evolved that because of AI in the role that AI is playing that, you know, I think there are over 2000 products out there that call themselves a CRM.
37:44
In my mind, there’s really only two that fit that I’m not going to get.
37:49
I mean, I don’t think everybody knows who they are, but and it’s because the R&D budgets, these small guys just can’t keep up anymore.
38:00
And and I think it’s that number is going to drop or you know, dramatically over the next 5 to 10 years.
38:08
So because of, you know, we need to move faster, we need to be smarter, we need to do more AI is the only way that’s going to happen.
38:17
So do you think, do you think that AI, Chris, is going to level the playing field or do you think that it’s going to cause more of a consolidation?
38:25
It’s, I think it’s going to eliminate a lot of the competition.
38:30
And so in my mind, I, I might as well just say it to me.
38:33
There’s two leaders out there, Salesforce and Microsoft.
38:37
And it’s because they’re the only ones with the big enough R&D budgets that are committed to spending that money to truly develop tools that enable the sales team.
38:52
OK.
38:52
So like I, I look at other CRMS out there, I’m like, that was CRM five years ago.
39:00
That’s not CRM today.
39:02
What if you let me ask you this, what, who would you say is a close third behind those two?
39:08
Well, in terms of popularity, Hubspot’s very popular, OK, But they’re really more of a marketing platform with the CRM bolted on.
39:16
It is not CRM to me.
39:17
It’s contact management.
39:19
It’s very basic, like the minimal functionality you need to my mind to be a CRM, and that’s what I did to CRM five years ago.
39:28
But could you see HubSpot going out to some of these smaller players that do have AI and then acquiring?
39:37
Yeah, I think they’re going to have to, if they want to stay relevant that if these guys aren’t investing, I mean, the stuff that Salesforce and Microsoft are doing with AI are blowing my mind.
39:52
They’re really smart in terms of enabling the sales team and eliminating the, you know, like I’ll give an example.
40:03
One of the biggest complaints I hear when I when we start working with a new client and talk to the leadership, they’re like, you know, we’re spending all this money to generate leads.
40:12
My team’s not engaging with them like they should and I have no visibility or, you know, I’m not able, I don’t want to make it my full time job to sit there and and play nursemaid.
40:22
You know, are you following up on this lead?
40:23
Are you following up on this lead?
40:26
AI is filling that role.
40:29
You know where AI is now able to direct the sales team.
40:33
Here’s the leads that have the most value.
40:35
This is where you’re supposed to be spending your time.
40:38
These ones are OK, but these five, these 10, this is where you need to be focused.
40:43
That’s a gift.
40:44
I mean, like, Oh my God, you got to be kidding me.
40:48
You know that that’s what’s coming.
40:51
I mean, it’s not coming.
40:53
It’s here, you know, and so that’s why I mean like these smaller ones, the ones that there’s no way they’re going to be able to keep up with that.
41:01
It’s just it’s not going to happen.
41:03
So do with the the advent of AI being so prominent within the platform increase the services or does the services piece of it kind of stay the same?
41:19
In other words, from an integration standpoint, now I’m going to go out and put in Salesforce and it’s got all this AI and am I now looking at a three-week integration or, you know, whereas before it was one usually just switches you’re turning on.
41:34
Oh, wow, that’s the other part too, that it’s no, it’s crazy to me in, you know, like another thing, Microsoft, so Microsoft’s got their big release coming out now one of the things that they’re doing with AI that’s coming out this year is if you have your customer service platform, Microsoft customer service platform, it can actually AI can extend out and monitor all the cases.
42:00
And so if they’re, you know, doing everything in the Microsoft, Microsoft’s also really smart in terms of how they do this.
42:05
Like if you do everything in our platform, we can pull all that data in the transcripts of the calls with your agents and then use that data to then feed, hey, here’s a sales opportunity to you based upon these case history with this client, based on language that’s being used or pattern of the cases, things like that that can now be fed to the sales team.
42:28
Oh, that’s awesome.
42:29
It’s crazy.
42:30
Yeah.
42:31
You know, that’s like dream stuff.
42:34
You know, again, that that is our future.
42:37
And so like for you guys in your world, AI is huge in the security space 100% because of what it can do.
42:45
And I think it’s been leading in that now the sales side is starting to catch up.
42:49
Yeah, yeah, No, that’s interesting because I think one of the things that, you know, from a sales perspective, you need a platform like CRM.
42:59
Again, kind of the necessary evil, right?
43:02
But because you have salespeople that leave and you have salespeople that you know, whatever, you have to be able to have records where somebody else can slot right in there and say, OK, this is your territory.
43:15
The other person is gone.
43:16
There’s hardly any transition for whatever.
43:19
And here’s all the records.
43:21
So the fact that you could have all those transcripts like that would be huge just from the the area of training.
43:28
Oh yeah, yeah, you know, an onboarding this person so yeah.
43:31
And you don’t even have to read the transcripts.
43:33
You can have AI summarize like summarize this for years.
43:35
All the high points.
43:36
Yeah like chat yeah yeah, and no, it’s next level and and so yeah, to me it’s pretty crazy.
43:44
Randy, we’re at our time.
43:46
I this one of those ones.
43:46
I could just keep going with you.
43:48
It’s so easy talking to you.
43:50
If people want to reach out, connect with you, Randy, find out more about you.
43:54
If they want to find out more about your company, what, what’s the best way for them to do that?
44:00
Yeah, they can’t.
44:01
No, I’m just kidding.
44:02
They need to know the code word.
44:08
Probably the best thing to do is just reach out to me on on e-mail or LinkedIn.
44:14
You know, if they want to just go up to LinkedIn and find my profile, that’s pretty simple.
44:18
And all my contact information is there.
44:20
It’s not hidden.
44:21
But yeah, Randy Johnston at PDI.
44:24
Well, that’s not e-mail address, but that’s Media Technologies and Randy Johnston.
44:29
And then just hit me up on LinkedIn.
44:31
That’s the easiest thing to do.
44:32
Awesome.
44:33
So you can do that by going to our show notes.
44:36
You can get those at impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog where you’ll get not only this episode and Randy’s contact info, links to PD is website, newspire, etcetera.
44:48
You’ll get all that in our show notes.
44:50
Be sure to check that out and subscribe so you can get all our future episodes.
44:54
We’d greatly appreciate that.
44:56
Randy, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
44:59
And welcome to the sales lead Dog back.
45:02
Yeah.
45:02
Thanks, Chris.
45:03
This has been very fun.
45:04
I’ve enjoyed talking with you, so if anything I can do, let me know.
45:08
Awesome.
45:08
Thank you.
45:09
See you as we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog.
45:15
Be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media, Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, watch the videos on YouTube, and you can also find our episodes on our website at impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog.
45:32
Sales Lead Dog is supported by Impeller CRM, delivering objectively better CRM for business guaranteed.
