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Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith.
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Talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack.
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Listen to find out how the best of the best achieved success with their team and CRM technology.
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And remember, unless you were the lead dog, the view never changes.
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Welcome to Sales Lead dog.
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In today’s episode, I am joining me Sandra Ontune of Vintage IT services.
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Sandra, welcome to sales lead doing.
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Thanks for having me.
0:39
Sandra.
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Tell me a little bit about Vintage.
0:43
So Vintage IT services is the largest privately owned managed services and cloud services provider based out of Austin, TX.
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We can support clients throughout the US, Canada and the UK and and yeah, we provide, you know, managed services, cloud services, security services, CMMC, you know, like compliance requirement services.
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We’ve become your full IT department.
1:13
Wow.
1:15
What do you see like for 2025 from your world, your perspective?
1:20
What’s the hot topic?
1:22
I mean, it’s been AI non-stop, but I think compliance is a part of that, right?
1:29
Especially as AI starts to grow and, and you start to determine, OK, you know, how are we going to adopt AI internally and what are the policy use cases around it?
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And you just got to keep up because I know few of us and internally were using it, but we don’t have a policy per SE, you know, at this point because it’s, you know, I’m using it on a very, very superficial scale for, you know, sales and marketing.
1:56
And I know that we have some internal 2 tools that are automated that we use AI for.
2:01
But you know, what happens next?
2:04
I think that’s a a topic to think about.
2:07
Oh yeah, big time.
2:08
Because we don’t really know where it’s going.
2:11
Potential, but it’s just potential, you know, So you got to make stuff happen, right?
2:17
And we don’t know where those alligators are that are going to jump on the tools.
2:21
Yeah, yeah.
2:23
Awesome.
2:24
Sandra, when you look back over your career, what are the three things?
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If you could boil it down to three things, what would those three things be that are really driven and LED to your success?
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Honestly, I would say being organized is a a big, big one.
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Consistency and not taking things personally.
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You know, it’s you just have to, I don’t know if I should say this, but it’s FMLF it and move on and just know that a no isn’t a no, It’s it’s a it’s a case to open up, you know, like some research analysis, you know, figure out, OK, what what was it?
3:03
Was it the timing that I not say the right thing, that I not listen enough?
3:08
So I’d say those three things, you know, have led or have certainly helped lead to my success.
3:14
That’s awesome.
3:16
Tell me, is this the job you have now?
3:20
Is that what you envisioned when you were starting your career?
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My degrees are in psych.
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And so SH and I was teaching children with autism and high functioning Asperger’s when I graduated college.
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And they wanted me to go to grad school, but I had a student pass away.
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Her name was Adina Senasib.
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And I just was like, I don’t know that I can do this.
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And looking around my friends, you know, I’m in my 20s.
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Everybody’s making all this money.
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And I got into the mortgage industry, did really, really well.
3:50
And then I moved to Austin, bought my condo market, crashed I think the day after I closed.
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And then I needed to find a job and I was in Austin and tech was the way to go.
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And I mean, I am just, I, I, I’ve been with vintage a little over 15 years and I’m just technical enough to be dangerous.
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But that only emphasizes that if you can sell anything, if you can sell one thing, you can probably sell in another.
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It’s just about, you know, nurturing those relationships and being human through the process.
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I think it’s actually an advantage to you that you’re not technical because the reality is most of the people you’re selling to are not technical either.
4:28
And so you can put it in their perspective.
4:31
I would imagine you’re pretty good at that.
4:32
Is that true?
4:33
Yeah, I would say for the most part, you know, when I’m dealing with the CIOs and Ctos, I mean, now I’m a little bit more well versed, obviously, than I was 15 years ago.
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But I’ll bring in, you know, an engineer.
4:44
But you’re right.
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People want to be spoken to in a vernacular that they understand.
4:49
They don’t, you know, it’s like the doctors trying to tell you the science behind why they have to give you a medicine to fix XYZ.
4:58
They just want you to tell them how it helps them, you know, and it’s going to make you feel better.
5:02
How long till I feel better?
5:04
So it’s the same kind of idea.
5:06
Yeah.
5:06
I love that analogy.
5:07
I’ve never heard anyone say that analogy.
5:08
I’m a steal that I like that go for.
5:12
I just I say that all the time.
5:13
In fact, I just the previous episode of sales lead dagger were talking about nobody comes to me to buy CRM because I love CRM.
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I have to have it.
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They’re buying CRM.
5:26
Some people love CRM, but they they’re buying it because we want CRM to solve a problem.
5:32
We want CRM to help us grow our business, to make things easier to enable to do all these things.
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We want the outcome like you’re saying.
5:40
So a doctor, I want to feel better when I go to the doctor’s.
5:43
I want the output.
5:45
I don’t know how you get there.
5:46
I just want to get me there and I’m.
5:48
Yeah, exactly.
5:50
Yeah, yeah.
5:52
So tell me about this transition like you’re starting out.
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What was your first role at Vintage?
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I just started as a sales exec.
6:01
I was working as a competitor and this is actually an interesting story.
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I was sending out marketing emails, you know, as a sales Rep working at the competitor.
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And one of the people that I sent a marketing e-mail to was a client of Vintage IT.
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That client sent an e-mail to my now boss said you should hire this girl.
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She’s been, you know, calling me left and right, emailing me.
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So I had the meeting and I got the job and I started, I started as a sales exec and then within a couple months I was promoted to sales manager and then several months later sales and marketing manager.
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And it had the most I’ve ever had on my team was about four or five.
6:44
And that included inside sales and a sales engineer slash outside sales engineer.
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And then I’m a marketing person.
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And then, you know, what we realized was that even when we had outside sales reps working under me, the return on investment wasn’t there.
7:07
And it’s not because I think it’s mainly because a lot of people don’t hunt, they farm or they want you to hand them the lead.
7:17
And, and it’s tough.
7:19
I think being in the sales vertical is one of the hardest jobs you can have, you know, especially if I’m a team of one right now and the entire company’s, you know, looking at me, it’s like, hey, we don’t have any cars to fix, like a mechanic shop.
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And so it’s a lot of pressure.
7:35
So so yeah, that that’s kind of how I ended up here.
7:40
I love that that’s that’s a terrific story.
7:43
Did so you’re there two months and they’re saying, hey, we want to become a sales manager.
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Did they ever explain to you why they made that decision?
7:52
Well, it’s actually a funny story.
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So when I started and we still, I think we’re starting to do this again, but we give personality tests, this test to all employees.
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And Steve, who I report to him and his wife were like a second set of parents to me.
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He would give these, this tests to sales reps that would apply and they would always be like the, the vendor that we used said this is a bad person to choose.
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Don’t hire them.
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But Steve really wanted the salesperson or he thought they might be great and they they always it didn’t pan out.
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When I got took my test.
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We met at a coffee shop and it he almost like he was going to cry.
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He was like, your score is as closest to mine as ever been in the history of, you know, a sales reps of vintage.
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And I mean, I would imagine that was part of it.
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But also, you know, I, I think what I’m seeing now after all these years is the owners, they never had children and I think they really care about their legacy and everybody’s going to age at some point.
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And now all, everybody on the leadership team, you know, has a small percentage of ownership.
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And I think he was, he had the foresight to think ahead and I guess it just worked out.
9:10
That’s awesome.
9:10
That’s awesome.
9:11
It’s it’s funny that, you know, when I talked to sales leaders and I asked them like, what’s your strategy for building a team?
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Some of them will say, hey, when I started, I was trying to find mini me.
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So I was trying to find clones of me and I realized the hard way that I don’t necessarily want clones of me because that doesn’t, you know, I’m not always right, right, you know, and and so you want to have some level of diversity in approach, opinions, whatever.
9:46
So when you’re doing like when you’re trying to hire, how do you approach that?
9:52
You know, to like, you obviously want the people that have those elements of your personality that make you successful, but you don’t want to necessarily hire clones.
10:01
How do you manage that?
10:03
Well, I truly believe that for any sales role, this is my opinion.
10:09
I I believe finding people who kind of worked just like on commissions only I think of Realtors, mortgage burgers.
10:18
I mean, they determine their paycheck, right?
10:21
How hard you hustle, how hard you work.
10:24
It also takes a really organized person to be able to do that.
10:27
You’re basically a small entrepreneur.
10:30
And I think, you know, if I can find that I’m open to hiring men and women.
10:37
I have when I was managing 50 people in the mortgage industry back in California, I would say that my best sales reps were women and I and I, I don’t mean to, to say that, you know, we’re any better or men are any worse, but there’s some maybe it’s my leadership, maybe it’s how I I train.
10:57
Maybe it’s because we listen in a different way and it it varies, but if I’m going to look at just a person’s experience and try to find people who were had the gumption to go and work on an environment where they only get paid when they sell something.
11:14
I, it’s so funny you said that.
11:16
Literally I just got done filming another podcast episode for sales lead dog.
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And afterwards we, I was talking with my guest and he asked me, like Chris, how do you find people for your podcast?
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And so I went through that and I said, actually, I was thrilled.
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I’m thrilled to have you on here because I said the biggest struggle I have is finding women to come on the podcast that so like if you’re a female sales leader, we’re going to almost harass you to get you to come on the show because I want to represent for women just for my daughter.
11:49
There’s a lot of really successful women in sales.
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There’s just not enough.
11:55
And when I said that to my guest, he’s like, you know, Chris, that really thinking about that, especially in in the tech industry, it’s very male dominated.
12:04
Absolutely.
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In my opinion, I think women would actually be better at selling this than men.
12:11
I thought this just innate skills that a lot of women have when it comes to listening and and connecting and showing empathy, whatever it might be that a lot of men struggle with.
12:25
You’re absolutely right, you know, and I think that was another part, you know, when Steve was thinking of promoting me because we are, you know, him and his wife own the company, but technically she’s the president.
12:35
And he wanted to have a female as the face of vintage to continue that, you know, notion.
12:42
Yeah.
12:43
Do you find it hard to find women in to come into your industry?
12:52
It’s hard for me to answer that because I haven’t had time.
12:56
Not time.
12:57
We have.
12:58
I’m not hiring as much as I would love to.
13:01
Let’s say if you were, how would you go about it?
13:04
If you were, you know, once you, I’m sure you what you guys will get that at some point.
13:09
What would your approach?
13:10
How would you go about trying to hire find women to come into the tech world?
13:14
Because I think a lot of women might, you know, it may not interest them.
13:19
They’re like, I don’t know if that’s a fit for me.
13:22
I mean, first I would look at all these sales leaders and channel leaders on LinkedIn, you know, people that I’m actually engaged with, even if I were just, you know, connections or if we’re friends.
13:34
I mean, the last woman that I hired who was amazing, but she had kids and had to go and I wanted to bring her back was somebody that I was, she was working at a telecom company and we would network together, you know, with a few other different verticals or you know, like a commercial mover, A cabling company, etcetera.
13:54
And I just really liked her and I could tell him like she our she was, she was hard on to be a a client account manager.
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So she helped, you know, maintain her current client base and loved her.
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And she’d take some of the owners, you know, to lunch or take, you know, the female owner should get a man here and pedicure.
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They knew her daughter and that relationship is invaluable.
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And she was excited to do it.
14:20
So that’s how I got her or hired her.
14:24
But I would start with LinkedIn.
14:26
I would start with, you know, word of mouth.
14:28
I mean, most of the people I know are, you know, a lot of their kids have, you know, they’re old enough that parents don’t have to stick around at home.
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And so I, I try that Ave.
14:40
because those people are hungry.
14:41
You know, they’ve been raising children, which is probably one of the hardest jobs without a doubt.
14:47
I, I mean, I can’t, I have so much respect for parents and I in fact, I have a few friends.
14:54
They were both getting ready to, you know, their kids are now in school full time.
14:58
They want to start working.
15:00
And they came and they talked to me like, what should we do?
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And they told me what they want to do.
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And I helped them, and they’re thriving.
15:06
I mean, they’re killing it.
15:06
One of these girls is like top sales Rep for a title company.
15:11
She’s been at home for 13 years, you know?
15:15
Yeah, They find out because they’re, like you said, organized.
15:18
They know they’re time limited, so they’re going to structure their day to get stuff done.
15:24
Yeah.
15:25
And that, that’s, that’s so important.
15:29
And anyway, yeah, I just think that’s I’m envious of people like that because that’s something I’m not good at.
15:38
I I wicked ADHD, so I’m all over the place.
15:41
Well, so do I, but it works.
15:44
Yeah.
15:44
I figured.
15:45
I figured out a way to make it work for me.
15:48
But it’s something that like, I really have to work to get dialed in.
15:53
What’s I’m going to ask you two sided question here?
15:56
What’s the best thing about your job right now?
15:59
What’s the worst thing about your job?
16:03
Best thing about my job is are the people we work with the stellar team and I respect and enjoy working with every single one of them.
16:15
Everybody works super hard, always around to help one another.
16:20
It’s not like, oh, that’s not part of my job.
16:23
You know, you go handle it.
16:26
The worst part about my job is I wish I had more hands.
16:30
You know, I wish I had more help, like help from, you know, being able to do as much as I want to do at the pace I want to do it.
16:39
And I mean that that really is probably the challenging part.
16:44
And obviously you want to sell more.
16:48
You know, the the last three months from the last quarter were intense.
16:52
You know, I don’t know if it was politics, I don’t know if it was, oh man, but it was rough.
16:59
It’s not just you.
17:00
Everybody I’m talking to, I know everybody.
17:03
It just, it doesn’t matter what industry.
17:05
I know so many salespeople in so many different industries.
17:09
Everybody had a horrible last quarter.
17:11
Really 2024 in general not a great, I have to agree.
17:16
And you know, I have to explain this to the owners and they’re very, very empathetic and they’re their goal is OK, well, how can we make this different for 2025?
17:25
So we started working on our 2025 sales and marketing plan, I don’t know four months ago to figure out what where is the weak link here?
17:34
What’s happening?
17:35
And, you know, even if they’re aware it’s the economy and what, whatever else is going on, it’s.
17:43
That’s my job.
17:45
No, exactly.
17:46
It’s like, hey, great, lovely excuse, but how are you fixing it exactly?
17:50
Yeah.
17:50
What are you doing to make it happen?
17:51
You still got to make it happen.
17:53
And.
17:53
Yeah.
17:54
And that’s why, yeah, I agree with you.
17:55
Like what you guys do, and I do it too.
17:58
But I think it is the hardest job out there.
18:01
And.
18:01
And unless you are in those shoes, it’s hard to understand just how hard it is.
18:10
You know, I, I told guy friends, like, look, as a man, I know intellectually having a baby is very painful, very hard, but it’s, I, I just, I don’t understand it even close to the way a woman who actually does that understand it.
18:26
Like we just can’t understand.
18:28
And so sometimes you just have to walk in the shoes of the other person to understand.
18:34
So that’s, you know, as a sales leader, as a market leader, you have both of those responsibilities.
18:41
How do you put yourself in the shoes of your customer?
18:44
So when you’re trying to connect, you’re trying to build rapport and develop that messaging, what do you do to to really kind of breakthrough that that and and break that, that perspective from the customer’s view?
19:00
I don’t know that I totally understand the question.
19:02
Well, let me rephrase it.
19:04
I said a lot of words there.
19:06
I think in sales we really, I think to be effective, this is my personal belief, You have to be able to have empathy.
19:15
You have to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the person you’re trying to help, to really understand and connect with them and give them something they truly need and will help them.
19:28
And so my question to you is, how do you do that?
19:30
How do you put yourself in the shoes of your customer so you are actually able to deliver value and help them?
19:38
Well, I think it’s listening.
19:40
You know, why are we here today?
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What is it?
19:43
OK, this is not working.
19:44
OK, I get it, that’s not working.
19:45
But how is it affecting your business?
19:47
You know what, what challenges does it does it bring to the different departments of your organization?
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And you know, if you could, if you could quantify how much time was lost and it then quantify how much.
20:06
Money was lost or efficiency, you know, where do you see the value?
20:10
And one of the things I tell all of the prospects that I meet with is, you know, your managed services provider should be just as important as your insurance provider or your attorney or your CPA.
20:24
You know, this is no job.
20:25
We’re talking about technology that has, it’s always important.
20:29
It’s always always changing and evolving.
20:32
But now more than ever, specifically after COVID, we were dependent on communicating and how are we going to do that without the help of technology?
20:43
And now with more and more businesses being forced to become compliant with whether it’s PCICMC and this 178, stick with your business.
20:56
Do what?
20:57
Focus on your business.
20:58
Let us focus on doing the rest.
21:00
And you know, it’s like, like I say, you wouldn’t drive your car without insurance.
21:06
It’s it’s the same concept.
21:08
Yeah, it really is.
21:09
And, and it, it’s funny, we take it for granted.
21:15
I, I think we take advantage for we, we, we don’t really even think about it until something goes wrong, right?
21:24
Then we care.
21:26
But the key is you got to get there before it goes wrong exactly.
21:31
So hopefully it doesn’t go wrong, right And exactly.
21:35
And that’s our entire, you know, our focus is what can we do today so our clients don’t fail tomorrow, right?
21:40
Like what proactive measures are we doing?
21:42
And you know, it’s funny because when the help desk isn’t getting hit with tickets, some business will say, why do we even have IT?
21:51
And like that’s the point is if we want you to call us to go have coffee now, it is technology.
21:56
There’s always going to be something, but to reduce that is the relief, right?
22:02
And like you said, until something breaks, you lose data, whatever happens, you can’t work.
22:11
You sometimes don’t realize the value in it, which is unfortunate.
22:15
So how do you go about establishing your goals both personally and in your role as a leader directing sales and marketing for for vintage IT services?
22:30
Well, I think one of the things that I recently just did this woman’s workshop and I had never really wrote down, I shouldn’t say that I did used to write down big goals.
22:42
You know, I remember I used to laminate.
22:43
I’m going to buy a house one day and I’m going to do all these things and I put it in my shower.
22:48
So I would look at it, but I haven’t done that in 10-12 years.
22:55
So really looking at my life, like if I could just in a perfect world, how would my life look like, You know, 5-6 years from now down to the details.
23:03
Anything that makes you happy is superficial or not.
23:07
So doing that and then slowly, OK, what are little steps I can do to get there?
23:12
And now we have AI that can help you cheat.
23:15
You can say give AI just a big brain dump.
23:20
This is the life I want.
23:21
I want to make X amount of money.
23:22
I want to sell these amount of new logos, whatever it is and have AI help you build an outline, you know, for a day-to-day, what can I do?
23:32
Just even if it’s 15 minutes.
23:35
And then for vintage, you know, we look at the growth year after year, you know, what is the minimum, you know, number of new logos we’ve brought on.
23:43
And year after year, the, even if the, the number of clients we bring on is the same, the, the monthly reoccurring has gotten, you know, greater over time and figuring out, OK, what goal do we need to hit to make sure that everybody gets, you know, a good bonus at the end.
24:01
And, you know, what can we do?
24:03
Like where, what, what is going on in the IT world that we’re seeing is a big pain point.
24:09
After I’ve met with people year after year, you know, I’m hearing this is a huge pain point.
24:14
What can we do to, to, to get the word out that we can help with this?
24:19
And how, how will we develop a plan to address this and so that we can hopefully get the attention of those businesses and then bring them on as clients?
24:30
Yeah, that’s the part that I used to coach entrepreneurs and and we used to, I used to tell them like you got to have AB hag a big hairy audacious goal three years out or five years out.
24:45
But I, I like 3 better than 5 because 5 is too far.
24:49
Personal opinion.
24:51
Like set that big goal and it’s a stretch.
24:54
It’s like, you know, it’s big, hairy audacious, right?
24:58
But now we got to work backwards.
24:59
You got to put that stake in the ground.
25:00
Like that’s where I want to get to in three years.
25:03
And we’d have them create a super detail.
25:06
Everything around it, you’re building a story.
25:08
This is what people are saying about me.
25:10
This is what my customers are saying about me.
25:11
This is what state the press, this is my team that I’m going to have, you know, whatever really create this picture in your mind.
25:19
Now work backwards year by year, quarter by quarter, month by month.
25:25
What do you do?
25:26
What are the actionable things you need to do to make that happen, to make that a reality?
25:31
And so I love that you said that, that you’ve got to, it’s not enough just to set the goal.
25:35
You’ve got to figure out you got to work backwards from that to figure out what are those things I have to do every day.
25:41
Well, I think it’s all sorry, go, no, I’m done, go ahead.
25:45
I think it’s also important to figure out if, if, if you had, if, let’s say you did write that goal down, you know, three years from now, but nothing’s changed.
25:55
That means you’ve got to make some changes and you have to be willing to put the work in.
25:59
So it’s like even if you have, you know, I am highly organized and I have my system and my work flows.
26:06
But if something’s not working, you know, if I’m not hitting, if I’m not even getting close to that goal, I got to change something.
26:13
And I have to be willing to get out of my comfort zone to make that happen.
26:18
And sometimes we get complacent, and especially people working from home, I think people became comfortable to some degree.
26:25
And.
26:25
And I guess you just got to figure out that goal’s really what you want and how hard are you going to work to get there.
26:32
Yeah.
26:33
Oh, yeah.
26:33
No, it’s true.
26:34
Like you have to be willing to pay the price.
26:37
Sometimes it’s easy.
26:38
Most of the time it’s not because it’s easy.
26:41
Probably most of the time it’s.
26:44
Yeah.
26:46
So how do you guys avoid, How does your leadership team avoid?
26:51
I call chasing squirrels, especially when times are things are down and we’re like, hey, we need, what do we do?
26:59
What adjustments do we need to make?
27:01
You see all these different things out there.
27:04
Some of them could take you away from your core.
27:08
They might be big pivots and maybe little pivots.
27:11
How do you go through those?
27:13
And and analyze to to filter through them to figure out what truly is a real opportunity and what’s just a squirrel that’s distracting you from what you really should be focused on.
27:27
And are you referring to like it’s part of your goal setting?
27:31
OK.
27:35
I don’t know.
27:36
Yeah.
27:36
Because when you’re developing that vision.
27:37
So that’s, it’s something I’ve talked, you know, I’ve seen with a lot of entrepreneurs and business leaders that they have this tendency that, hey, we need to do something drastic.
27:48
And they do something drastic and they they, you know, fall on their face in a bad way.
27:56
Well, I, yeah.
27:58
And that’s usually what happens more often than not.
28:01
And so that’s why I asked that question is what do you guys do?
28:05
Because you’ve been in business a long time, so you’re definitely doing something right.
28:09
Yeah, I’ve always been proponent of not making big changes too fast.
28:13
I think that can affect the internal team.
28:17
It can affect the even the sales team, like I don’t know what I’m selling anymore, lose some confidence.
28:22
So I think making small changes.
28:24
And I’m fortunate enough that my direct report is Steve Haynes, who’s the Vice president.
28:29
And you know, we were just in Miami last month to meet and of course for sales and marketing.
28:36
So our, our, our conference rooms were beaches and pools and pool bars and restaurants, but it inspired some creativity and we, we think very, very similarly.
28:49
And which can, and, and technology, specifically techs and sales.
28:54
Like, you know, we speak completely two different languages most of the time.
28:58
And sometimes it’s hard to explain to the techs why we have to maybe take on this customer because the potential could be really, really big.
29:07
You know, I look back at one of the smallest clients we had when I first started, I think they were paying like $200 a month.
29:12
That grew to a $30,000 a month account.
29:17
And it was about really asking the right questions.
29:20
Also a little bit of luck and for both parties.
29:24
In fact, if you think about it that way, but making small changes like right now, you know, I am working through this platform which helps me see, you know, what businesses got came to our website, went to our contact us page, but didn’t fill it out.
29:42
But I can see who it was and kind of figure out, OK, what, what, where was the pause there?
29:48
What happened?
29:49
You know, do they get distracted?
29:51
They just pushed the wrong link and see, you know, ’cause we’re seeing a lot of our clients even come to our website, you know, and is it coming through our newsletter, etcetera.
30:00
But I’m working through that to see, OK, are these potentially good clients and is this even a good tool to be using?
30:08
Like I won’t know until I try it out, but so far the data is great.
30:14
So we’ve never done that before.
30:15
So working on that, you know, and just figuring out whatever, whatever I can do with the capacity and bandwidth that I have to make a small shift and and hopefully it we don’t fall on our faces if we do just get back up, fail faster and you move on.
30:35
Yeah, no, I like that.
30:36
It’s, you know, it, to me, it’s, I say this a lot too, talking with people, especially when you’re like, hey, I need to like, how do I, I’m spending all this money on marketing.
30:48
How do I know I’m getting value?
30:50
And to me, it’s like you have to do what you just did.
30:53
Where it’s like, where are the gaps?
30:54
Where am I not seeing the people that are raising their hand, that are showing some level of interest and I’m not engaging them?
31:03
Start there.
31:04
Yeah.
31:05
You know, because they’re raising their hand, they’re doing something to say there’s some reason I came to your website.
31:11
Now you got to figure out why exactly.
31:13
But they’re raising their hand.
31:14
That’s like, that’s so invaluable, right?
31:18
And so it’s, you got to take advantage of those.
31:23
Yeah.
31:24
You know, we have a newsletter that has been going out since even before I started, but I write the contents for it.
31:30
It goes out every Thursday.
31:33
We have about 29,000 subscribers.
31:35
And my favorite part is always going back and looking at the reporting.
31:39
And he’s looked at what?
31:40
Because I have met with several of those companies and they continue to recognize us as some sort of industry thought leader ’cause they’re reading the contents on our site.
31:51
And we don’t just talk about vintage and what we sell, we talk about what’s a local event that’s happening.
31:57
It’s called Tech and Tunes, your weekly dose of tech insights and classic tracks.
32:02
And I’ll put in a song of the week.
32:04
And then we added Austin Bites and Sips, which, you know, talks, you know, it suggests local restaurants, bars, etcetera happening is they’re bringing more value to them.
32:14
And my goal is this, maybe this is part of my nurturing of the relationship because I certainly don’t have the capacity to call 29,000 people or take them to lunch or show up at their office, nor maybe they probably wouldn’t want me to.
32:27
But it’s a way to engage and not, you know, I’m still learning from them.
32:32
I mean, I’ve been doing this for so long and I’m still learning the patterns and why people click on things.
32:37
And then from there, figuring out a different path, maybe we start segmenting newsletters specific to the people who are clicking on just this topic.
32:46
Right.
32:47
Right.
32:47
Yeah.
32:48
It’s, it’s data.
32:49
It’s analysis and then action.
32:52
Yeah, Yeah.
32:54
Shifting topics here a little bit.
32:55
CRM, do you love it or do you hate it?
33:00
I don’t hate it.
33:03
I wish it could do more.
33:05
Yeah, it had a sexier way of delivering, you know, communications.
33:12
It’s interesting.
33:12
I’ll get there for a second.
33:13
Let me ask you a follow up question.
33:15
If you had a magic wand to fix one thing with CRMCRMS in general, right, what would how would you use your magic wand?
33:28
Well, since I’ve just been using this one for 15 years, mainly, I would say automation.
33:39
Obviously is is is a big thing, but it’s the CRM that we use isn’t When I say it’s not sexy, I can’t send like for example, I can’t send an e-mail from the CRM that looks like it’s coming from my e-mail.
33:55
It looks like some, you know, spammer, you know, sent it out and it’s weird because that wasn’t the case previously.
34:03
It’s like the update kind of messed everything up.
34:07
I wish it was easier to make changes from like the drop down menus.
34:11
You know, it’s like I always got to go to the CEO, then we have to work with the company that handles that and make the changes.
34:17
Like I wish I could customize it to how I use it.
34:21
And, and I guess the reason most companies may not want that is because they probably have a larger sales team and you need to have a standard, right, so that you can measure performance.
34:31
No, what I hear what you’re saying all the time.
34:34
Now, I’m not going to mention I know what CRM they’re using for listeners that you’re listening.
34:39
And I’m not going to mention the name because the name doesn’t matter.
34:43
But what I’m going to say is there are platforms out there that they say they’re CRMS, but they’re really not.
34:52
And I think that’s really the what you’re describing are symptoms of that.
34:57
Those are the clues that what you have as ACRM really isn’t ACRM.
35:03
It’s usually a bolt on or an extension from another platform.
35:09
There’s a lot of ERP platforms out there that say they have CRM and their CRMS are horrible.
35:14
They’re not even used as CRM compared to the ones that truly are like built from the ground up as ACRM.
35:22
And so that’s a common reason why I bring that up is that if you’re listening, you’re listening to this and you’re have those same issues, more than likely that’s the problem.
35:32
And so then now your choice is, well, what do I do to mitigate that?
35:36
Or do I pursue another CRM that actually, which isn’t always an option.
35:41
You know, more often than not, I’ve got to live with what I’ve got.
35:45
So what do you do?
35:48
You know, you know what the boxes that you have to play in to do your job, how do you work around those limitations to still get done what you need to get done?
35:58
Well, because I’ve been the main person doing it and using it in that capacity.
36:04
I make the rules.
36:05
So yeah, you probably know better than anybody, right?
36:08
Well, the, the definition I want to and in fact, the owner just last year is like, I need you to teach me how to use this.
36:15
And he wanted to use it one way.
36:16
And I said, but you’re not going to get the reports you need.
36:19
So there are some things you can do, but there has to be a standard or whenever we’re comparing mine to yours, it’s not going to be the same.
36:29
So you follow my my model because it’s longer and it’s working.
36:36
So I would say, yeah, that’s that’s how I do it.
36:40
And obviously I have.
36:43
Yeah.
36:43
And that and that’s really you got to live within the reality of what you have.
36:46
It doesn’t mean your reality can’t change over time, but you have to, you have to play the Andrew Del exactly and still get your job done.
36:57
Sandra, We’re at our time.
36:58
This, it always goes by every so fast.
37:00
They see this at the end of every episode.
37:02
But it’s because every time I look down on my clock and I’m like, my God, I can’t believe we’re done.
37:07
Thank you so much for coming on today and talking with me.
37:11
I really appreciate it.
37:12
It’s a real gift to me that you give me this time to come on and and a gift for our listeners.
37:16
If a listener wants to reach out, connect with you, if they want to learn more about vintage IT services, what’s the best way for them to do that?
37:25
I would say my e-mail, which is SANTOUN at vintageits.com or you can go to [email protected].
37:39
We’re finally on LinkedIn.
37:41
Awesome.
37:41
So if you didn’t catch any of that, no worries.
37:43
We have it in our show notes.
37:45
You can get that in pellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog where you’ll get the show notes not only for this episode, but all the 100 plus episodes of sales Lead Dog.
37:54
So be sure to check that outreach out, connect with Sandra, and also be sure to subscribe to Sales Lead Doggy so you get all our future episodes.
38:04
That’d be great.
38:05
We’d appreciate that.
38:06
Sandra, Thank you again for coming on Sales Lead Dog and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog Bank.
38:12
Thank you so much, Christopher.
38:13
I really humbled that I was invited to come chat with you.
38:16
So thank you As we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog, be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media.
38:26
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.
38:38
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