Walking A Fine Line – Paul Steinmetz

 

Transcript:

Fri, Feb 4, 2022

SUMMARY KEYWORDS 
sales , crm , people , deals , job , meetings , working , events , pipeline , linkedin , company , close , leaders , selling , music festivals , email , travel , lead , role , career

SPEAKERS
Paul Steinmetz & 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 Paul Steinmetz, Paul is the national sales manager, meetings and events for travel leaders corporate. Paul, welcome to Sales Lead Dog

Paul Steinmetz
Thank you. It’s real pleasure to join you today.

Christopher Smith
Paul, tell me about your current role in in travel leaders corporate.

Paul Steinmetz
Absolutely. So, travel leaders corporate is a very large company owned by a parent company, inner Nova travel group, with about 12 subdivisions, travel leaders, corporate specializes in corporate travel group air, as well as strategic meetings management. And so, I’m on the meetings and events side and have been working in that space for the last eight years. And so Incentive Travel and large expos and corporate meetings, full service third party. So, everything from the planning, site selection, sourcing, and negotiation of the room block, etc. all the way through preplanning and on-site staffing, AV production really soup to nuts on the meetings and events.

Christopher Smith
Yeah, if anyone’s ever been involved in that the amount of logistics and work that goes into pulling off a big event is mind boggling. It’s amazing. Absolutely, yeah. So, to have a partner like you guys, that that’s a game changer. That’s awesome.

Paul Steinmetz
Yeah, and thankfully, we’re starting to see the live meetings and events business come back very strongly, in this first quarter, and we’re very bullish on q2 and q3 as well. That’s awesome. That’s really been great to see him. I’m sure we were all sick of having some zoom fatigue, although it’s great to join you here on Zoom today. I know, you know, most of our clients are really chomping at the bit to get back in person meet with each other.

Christopher Smith
I tell you, I’ve been I mean, like everyone else. We’ve been virtual for two years now. And it is getting old. And we cherish those moments when we can actually sit across the table from someone. It’s not absolutely I used to hate

Paul Steinmetz
change the game. And you know, I’m happy to speak a little bit about that today. But it’s really changed the sales process and being able to, to close deals, sitting at your, at your house in front of your computer and have these meetings and close large deals without ever really having an in person or having to get on a plane. It’s, it’s been interesting to say the least.

Christopher Smith
And the cool thing is you only have to look nice from the waist up. That’s it. You could be wearing a pair of shorts or whatever. No, no,

Paul Steinmetz
Well, I’ll stay seated. I’ll keep you mister.

Christopher Smith
I appreciate that. I’ll do the same. I’ll pass it along. So, Paul, think back over your career? Because you’ve done a lot of different things. What are the three things that have really driven and led to your success?

Paul Steinmetz
Yeah, thanks. I’ve definitely had a charmed career path. Thankfully, the three things that have really led to my success throughout, I would say, you know, a true curiosity and hunger for knowledge, and really being interested in whether that’s speaking with a client being interested about their business, or you know, them personally, or the challenges that they’re facing, but really having a genuine curiosity, persistence, in sales, but a very professional persistence, I think there’s a fine line between being a pain in the ass and being really persistent and effective as a salesperson. And it’s a bit of a tightrope act. And so, being able to do that successfully, has been a big part of my success. Um, and I would say, you know, really, I think persistence, persistence, persistence, persistence, really just being able to, to go after deals that may not close right away, but stay in contact and build those relationships, so and more so than persistence, but relationship building, and again, I think that ties into having a genuine curiosity and you know, sales is really a relationship game and people do. buy from people they want to, you know, they like, and they trust and so it’s building that rapport and that and that relationship is really been instrumental,

Christopher Smith
what men what role is mentorship played in your career if you had any great mentors?

Paul Steinmetz
I was talking about this this afternoon. I’ve had some very good coaches throughout and recently had a very good sales coach and they’ve, they’ve all provided interesting strategies here and there. I never looked at them as mentors at you know, looking back now maybe I could say, okay, well they serve that mentorship role. Ironically, I found that I learned more from people who were doing it wrong and bad leaders who would throw temper tantrums. And I’ve worked. I’ve worked for the worst of the worst. I mean, I’ve had some, some, some great bosses. But I’ve worked for some crazy people who threw furniture and yelled and screamed and thought that was the way to, you know, man, lead your team and get your troops riled up. And I’ve worked in sales rooms where it was really a rah, rah kind of cheer, you know, before the day started and getting everyone really pumped up. And I think that’s a bit old school. And nowadays, it’s really building relationships, being empathetic to your team, leading really, you know, leading by example holding their hand and, and walking them along rather than pushing them forward. It’s a bit different than when I started my career where I worked for a guy who, you know, the sales training consisted of watching Glengarry Glen Ross, he’s like, alright, we’ll always be closing and attention you know, it was like, well, you know, it’s a great movie. Don’t get me wrong, I love to Chino as much as the next guy. But that’s, that’s not selling in today’s world. I mean, it’s fun to joke about but that that’s just not the current sales environment that we live in.

Christopher Smith
How do you get your start in sales?

Paul Steinmetz
So, I’ve been telling the story wrong for the last 20 years. I you know and working in meetings and events and being in South Florida. My what I thought was my first job was at the breaker’s hotel, very famous resort here in Palm Beach. Right when I got my driver’s license, that was the first job that I remembered, my father pointed out to me a few weeks ago that my first job was actually in sales at fitness today selling gym memberships. When I was 14, I actually rode my bike, I completely blocked that out of my memory for some reason. But yeah, my very first job at 14 was selling gym memberships, worked in the meetings and event space right out of college, got involved with some colleagues and started a magazine that did very well. And then moved into the music industry of all things and was working on international destination music festivals, spearheading a sales and travel team. I had 10 sales agents, we were managing about 15,000, individual reservations for five different music festivals, they would take place on cruise ships, we would fully charter cruise ships, and we would fully charter all-inclusive resorts in Mexico and Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. And so that was an interesting experience both in from the sales side, just dealing with all kinds of interesting situations, both pre-event on site wearing many, many different hats. But being a part of something really special, and very large events, multimillion dollar events that were very large-scale music festivals. And then, which was an amazing job actually met my wife on the beach in Jamaica, my very first event and have my two beautiful daughters as a result of that job. So, I always say that was the best job I ever had, because it really changed my life and, and the most profound way. But then having children and working in the music industry really don’t go well together. So, I got started on the meetings and events side, which is where I began my career. And for the last six years have been working, pharmaceutical meetings, large expos. And most recently with travel leaders, building out their meetings and events side.

Christopher Smith
Know, what’s the worst sales job you ever had.

Paul Steinmetz
I ironically, the worst one is, you know, looking back at it now may have been the best one at the time. I was in between jobs. And I started working at a call center. It was inbound calls. But it was they were running 24-hour shifts. It taught me how to sell at the time it was working weird hours. It wasn’t a scam, but it just did. It didn’t feel right. It turns out there was like three or four other companies in that same space that were running a scam out of India and stealing people’s data. The firm I was with wasn’t doing that. But when the FTC raided those companies, they didn’t really care who was doing what they assumed everyone. So, I had probably the best month working there. And my paycheck went it was right I remember right before Christmas paycheck goes into my account and then it gets immediately removed because their assets were seized. Right so horrible job. I was I was kicking butt. But the training was great. I really, they taught you how to sell on the phone, how to ask better questions, how to use the tone of your voice, how to mimic really You know, honed my phone sales, tremendously horrible experience, about a year and a half, maybe a year later, the court case they got proven innocent and my check went through. So, like pennies from Heaven out of the blue, I get this this check that, you know, I had written off a year ago. So, it ended as a happy story. And thankfully, nobody, you know, they weren’t doing anything wrong, but they got caught up in it. Yeah. But at the time, it was just a horrible, you know, just kind of dreaded, go into work and deal with it. But looking back, I am so much better talking on the phone and in that you know, a resume, but have knowing how to ask open ended questions naturally knowing how to let the client talk, right. And a lot of times, salespeople just talk too much talk past the clothes, talk, talk. And it’s oftentimes I think, a sign of nervousness or lack of confidence, but being able to just let your client talk and absorb it and take good notes and ask relevant questions that are genuinely trying to solve their problem. If your end goal, is I’m just trying to make a quick buck. And all my focus is on the commission, and I don’t give a crap. If it moves to ops, and I have a horrible experience. I just want to close it and close it quick, then it’s not going to be successful. But if you take a genuine concern, curiosity, people pick up on that they want to do business with people who want to help them.

Christopher Smith
What advice do you have someone who’s just starting out in a sales career?

Paul Steinmetz
Yeah, so again, I think, you know, persistence is huge, not taking anything sick sales is rejection. And anybody who tells you different isn’t in sales, it’s being able to know that every No, you get it, you’re that much closer to it. Yes. And really believe that, because you can hear it, and you can say it, but if you don’t believe it in your heart, it takes a lot to keep getting punched in the face and getting back up and keep going down and getting back up. But the ones who are able to do it are successful. And it’s it truly is a numbers game. And obviously, if you’re selling a great product at a great price that everybody wants, you know, it makes it a lot easier. But regardless of what you’re selling, I think no your product really is if you’re if you’re working somewhere and you don’t believe in your product genuinely, or you have a lot of doubts or concerns about it, you should probably find something else to sell. If you can’t really, you know, be an evangelist for your product from a place of honesty. People pick up on that. And I think you have to really believe in what you’re selling. It certainly helps. And you know, if you want to sell used cars, and you don’t really care, then you know, but I think the people that are tuning into your podcast are professional salespeople that are looking to further their career. And I think there’s a lot of opportunities right now, if you’re not working in an industry, you’re passionate about finding, if you don’t know what you’re passionate about, I find that’s a big thing for junior people’s like, well, what you know, what do you want to do? And that’s it is a daunting question. I remember kind of sitting down with that one. I would say write a list pros and cons. What am I good at? What do I like? You know, it’s silly, it is okay, well, you know, I like video games. Okay, well, there’s a hell of a lot of sales roles, that EA Sports and all these other companies and PlayStation and so if that’s really what you’re interested in, or whatever it is, you may have to start, you know, at a junior position, but they’re certain, you know, to be working in something completely opposite of that, that you’re miserable going in into work. And I think we’re seeing that in the workplace right now with what’s being called the Great resignation, is that, you know, there’s an opportunity that people if they were afraid of it, now, they’re not afraid of it because they either got furloughed, or you know, they’ve been through this horrible experience that was COVID. And they were not we’re now on the other side, we made it so that that that lack of knowing right, that uncertainty that that paralyzes so many of us doesn’t exist like it did two years ago, it just doesn’t and so people who may have been in you know, a mediocre job, or they dreaded going to work, but it was paying the bills, I’m gonna, I’m okay. are now having the confidence to say, wow, you know, I could be doing five that five other things that I’m interested in are passionate and I think that does make a huge difference. Yeah.

Christopher Smith
What drove your decision to switch from sales to sales leadership

Paul Steinmetz
wasn’t so much of a decision. I was thrust into those positions. I’ve had several jobs where I was hired initially and then moved into a management leadership position. For a variety of reasons. I worked for a company, and we were sending technicians all over the United States. And one evening, one of the techs had, you know, issue with their hotels, I don’t feel safe staying at this hotel. And I said, well, you know, can you send me a picture of what it looks like what’s going on? She’s like, you know, it’s dangerous here. And I was getting ready to, she sent me a picture of an empty parking lot at the, you know, Hampton Inn or something. And it just didn’t really make sense. I said, well, listen, you know, what you’re describing to me? I don’t see it, you’re an adult, if you want to get another hotel room, then, you know, go get one and we can, you know, maybe we’ll be able to pay back for it, maybe we won’t. But if you don’t feel safe, then, you know, do what you got to do. But this was probably my first week at the company. I said, but I don’t have the authority to buy you two hotel rooms, right? The CEO heard about this, right? And he calls me into his office. And he goes, Yeah, I want to talk to you about so and so I’m like, oh, gosh, here we go, I’m gonna be in big trouble. He goes, good for you for telling her No, I want you to manage all of the, the text now, you know, so oftentimes, it’s not being afraid to or to let people push you around or to be in a position of leadership, that, you know, it wasn’t my job to say yes or no. And so, I didn’t, I didn’t authorize it. And once he found out that he had somebody on the team, who was willing to stand up for, you know, his bottom line, right? It sortsof thrust me into that leadership role. But um, you know, it’s been, it’s been a joy throughout my career to mentor, junior sales folks, that can think back on a couple that are doing very, very well right now and have, you know, been kind enough to reach out to me and come back later on. And thank me for some of the advice or, you know, occasionally we’ll reach out as they’re negotiating for their next position to get some, some feedback on how they should position it. And so that’s been really, it’s been really great. It’s very satisfying to be able to help colleagues who are I consider friends. And so that’s, you know, one of the great things throughout my career I’ve had, again, I’ve worked for some crazy people. But in each one of those jobs, I’ve made a work friendship that has turned into, you know, a real strong friendship, but I keep in touch. And I travel all around the country for work, and it’s great. I have colleagues in just about every state, so it’s nice to be able to have dinner with some of these old work colleagues and, and reminisce about those days and crazy times, and, yeah, but yeah, but being a mentor really has been rewarding. And I would strongly recommend, even for, you know, people starting out, if there’s someone new that comes on board, there’s always somebody who knows less than you don’t, don’t be stingy with your knowledge and your information. But also know when to keep your mouth shut, and when to provide that information, I think is a talent. Nobody constantly wants to be given suggestions or, or mentored, you know, I think let people come to you. Otherwise, it just comes off as a little overbearing, but again, it’s a tightrope act and sales in general, I find is a bit of a, it’s kind of a high wire act, and you’ve got to be able to, to have good footing and know, you know, if you know how to do it, and you know, the steps and you follow the steps you get across the wire, but if you’re trying to, you know, do it fly by night, oftentimes you can fall.

Christopher Smith
Yeah, what’s the toughest part about your job as a sales leader?

Paul Steinmetz
Right now, it’s being virtual, and having a disconnect, if I need to see, you know, speak to somebody and, you know, they’re not in front of their computer, they haven’t responded back to an email, there’s just it’s different than if I meet you. And I walk down the hall and pop into your office and the organic conversations that solve other problems. You know, I don’t so much Miss watercooler conversations about Game of Thrones and that kind of stuff. I certainly don’t miss the commute, an hour commute that I had each way into the office. But just that ability to have that the quality, kind of impromptu interactions that, you know, a good sales team, that’s, you know, you know, invaluable to be able to say, oh, yeah, well, no, I know, so and so over there. And it’s, it’s, it happens on Zoom sales calls. But it’s a lot less organic and finding,

Christopher Smith
oh, yeah, I missed the whiteboard sessions and being like, being able to stand and, and have that interactivity and collaboration. That’s something I really miss.

Paul Steinmetz
Yeah, absolutely. But the flip side to that, again, is that we’re able to use this technology and have a meeting 1000s of miles apart. That feels like we’re having an in-person meeting. It’s not going to replace it. But I have been able to close more deals over zoom this year from my house than I probably did in 2019. traveling all over of the country. Now I developed a lot more new relationships. Certainly, how a lot of great, you know, dinners and wonderful wine and good experiences, and close deals doing that. But I was completely surprised at how quickly everybody adapted to this new virtual zoom world that we’re living in, not only for large meetings and events, because obviously those have to happen. And it was sort of happening before COVID. But, and certainly video conferencing was happening before COVID. But being able to close large deals over a video conference was new. And I And we’re now getting back to getting in person, which is nice to see. But it was a bit of a surprise to me to see just how effective that the video conferencing could be.

Christopher Smith
Yeah, so you’re fairly new in your current role, you only been there a few months, what attracted you to this position?

Paul Steinmetz
Yeah, I think the this the size of the company, their buying power, their position in the industry, really solid company, lots of different divisions very well run. I, at the time had two offers on the table. One was for an events company here locally; I know the owner. It’s a totally different work environment. And I actually was able to speak to somebody who had worked there previously, which I’m so glad I did, because I got a bit of an eye-opening kind of inside baseball look into their company. And it was really not the work life balance I was looking for. And when you’re working for, and I’ve done this, throughout my career, I’ve worked for smaller kind of mom-and-pop companies. There’s a lot of micromanagement and oversight meetings every single day, she described these horrible meetings that you know, from nine to four in the afternoon, and then you’re expected to get all your work done at four in the afternoon, if you weren’t staying until 10 o’clock at night, then you were looked at was you know, you weren’t part of the team. So, she described that and so I ended up you know, going with, with the larger company travel leaders, and I tell you, it has been the greatest blessing. It’s such a I’m working on a great team; I really am enjoying the work that I’m doing. It’s you know, a well-known respected name in the industry. Meetings are now coming back; we work with some very large fortune 100 companies. So, it’s, it’s, you know, been great. And it was a step perfectly in the right direction from what I had been doing, which was more on the supplier and planner procurement side as, as a matchmaker, and this is more true sales leaders and Sales Hunter.

Christopher Smith
When you come into a new role like this, how do you structure your first 90 days.

Paul Steinmetz
So, with this role, it’s been a slower onboarding process than ever been used to. And I think a lot of that has to do with COVID, that we’re not all in an office sitting in a room getting a training. Um, but it’s been, it’s been great. And it’s been the, you know, my direct is, you know, he’s like, you know what, you’re doing your industry professional, go do it. And it’s really been great to have that. That freedom and knock wood I’ve been doing really well, and deals are coming in. It’s been great to have a sales leader who trusts me and knows that I’m getting things done. And I’m able to produce and that I’m coming into the position with a lot of experience and knowledge. And I think that’s been really helpful for me, because I’m not having to go back with a lot of questions. He’s not really having to check my work or stay on top of it. You know, it’s been, it’s been great. As far as what I do for first 90 days structure my day structure my calendar, I think outlook everybody uses outlook. But how well are you using Outlook, if your Outlook only has appointments on it as they come in, you’re probably not managing your day very effectively in Outlook. I between Siri I don’t yet have a personal assistant, a human, but I have one in my pocket and she’s more reliable than most of the personal assistants on the market. Really, you know, set reminders, there’s no excuse to be late to a sales appointment. If you’re a salesperson. If you’re not on your call, five minutes, 710 minutes early, you’re late because people do come on early. And it just doesn’t look good. Have your deck up and ready. Be prepared. Schedule out in between your calls buffers, you’re gonna have to go to the bathroom, you’re gonna have to drink some water. Be intelligent with your calendar, managing your time is everything in life but really in sales. It It’s critical, because there’s so much outbound and there’s so much follow up, there’s so many emails, and there’s all the CRM, you know that you’re dealing with, that if you, if you try to do a little here, a little here, a little here and go back, and you’re not really finishing things, you never get ahead. And so, I’m a big proponent of as best I can, processing tasks off my list and structuring my day, where it’s very task oriented. And it’s, it’s open. But it’s structured, right. So I know in the morning, I’m doing outbound sales, all my outbound calls, I’m not going to call people in the morning, typically, to follow up, you know, unless they’re expecting a call, I find that better luck getting a hold of people, they’re a bit more receptive in the afternoon, because in the morning, everyone’s busy, they’re returning emails, unless it’s important, you know, anything, you know, three o’clock, and beyond, I have a lot of success. It’s the end of the day, people have time for a 15-minute call. As far as you know, outbound emails, the morning is great. Everybody’s checking their email, right, everyone’s attentive, everyone’s had their coffee, they’re not, you know, after lunch, having that, you know, wanting a nap and sort of check it out. So it’s being, you know, being thoughtful, and really structuring and using your, you’re the tools that you have available, whether it’s outlook, whether it’s Siri, whether it’s an old school, calendar, paper, calendar, you know, whatever works for you, if you don’t have it written out, if you don’t have it organized, and on paper, you’re not, you’re not going to be as effective.

Christopher Smith
Tell me about a you mentioned rejection, being a part of sales earlier. Tell me about the deal that you lost that hurt the most.

Paul Steinmetz
was working with a very large casino out of Las Vegas, and had a very large sponsorship opportunity that it was right there it was, everything was going perfectly. And then COVID happened and all of all of the budgets got cut, and it was literally right about to close, right there for signature, right when the world turned upside down. And that would have been a home run. And, you know, it happens, I still have a wonderful relationship with my contacts there, and hope to do a lot of business with them in the future. But it was, it was just a gut punch. Oh, man, those are tough. No, it was nothing. And so, listen, if you do something, if you put your foot in your mouth, if, you know, they get a hold of your price sheet, oh, your competitors, somebody you know, a bad review online, there’s a lot of things that can happen. But when it’s just completely out of your control, and there’s a global pandemic, then I think a lot of people, you know, everybody, you know, felt that whether you lost your job, whether you impacted your, your bottom line, or it was

Christopher Smith
How do you leverage losses like that, or, you know, losing those deals as a learning opportunity?

Paul Steinmetz
Yeah, again, you don’t take it personally. It’s so I’m, I’m very confident that I could walk back in that office and close a large deal when the time is right. So, it’s, again, it’s persistent, it’s maintaining the relationship, and knowing yet it didn’t happen, then. But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. And I’ve had that in so many different RFPs where we come in second, and they really loved our presentation, but for whatever reason that they knew they were going to use the incumbent ahead of time, or whatever it was. But then a month 234 Later, we’ll get a call and said hey, we’re interested in having you guys do this work. So a no is not always a no. And gosh, I forget who told me, but I think the best piece of said one of the best piece of sales advice that I’ve been given was sale a sale doesn’t begin until you’ve been told no. You’re taking you’re an order taker if everything’s coming to you, and nobody says No at all times, then that’s not really sales, but that that’s a job right? But you’re taking orders. And so, getting someone who initially tells you no to then buy from you, that is sales that is the judo that is sales and being able to ask the right questions and well is it really a no because and pull that out? Because of course everybody says no, no one wants to talk to the sales guy that calls on the phone right and give up their money easy, right? You’ve got to be able to get past that. No, professionally, get past that. To get to the Yes. So that’s been words that I truly believe and live by. And so, when I when I get a No, I kind of get hungry. And it’s like it’s a challenge and you don’t win them all. And it’s not taking it personally right. It’s the This note, nobody that ever said no to buying something from me did it because they thought I was a bad guy or not honest or you know, unlikable, or whatever it was, it was a budget thing it was they weren’t ready at that time, whatever it was, you don’t take it personally. And on to the next. But staying on, you know, LinkedIn is a great tool for all the ones that said no to you, like their post, right? Not only like their posts, make a comment that doesn’t ask for anything that either adds to what they said and infographics, an article a link to an article is like, hey, I totally agree, do you have you read this piece in the journal, a gift, right? It’s a like a, give a like a gift. And you do that over six months, that the next time you go, and you go back to them, it’s a different conversation, they’re more receptive you have, with this new world we’re living in, we’re able to have a social and online social interaction that feels like a human interaction, right? If I like your post, you got that little, you know, bump of serotonin. You know, you do that enough, it really makes an impact. And it shows people and again, it’s a double-edged sword, right? You know how many people I get that hit me up on LinkedIn, I accept it, and I’ve got a sales pitch in my inbox 32, or maybe 15 seconds later. And every one of those gets immediately, I can’t think of one that I was like, Oh, I really want to do business with this person. You know, I sometimes

Christopher Smith
I’ll like septum just to see, how long is it going to take before I get the sales pitch? You know? Yeah, it’s, it’s almost, it’s funny.

Paul Steinmetz
So, what I found is the, I’m gonna say the sales pitch. But when you meet those people in real life at a conference, right, then I think we’re connected on LinkedIn. Right? You haven’t you haven’t pitched them you haven’t been? You know, maybe you’ve liked some things. Maybe you haven’t. But it’s, oh, we’ve got seven mutual friends. And you know, so and so or, you know, it bridges that gap. And I think you can be very strategic with it. I’ve used LinkedIn Sales Navigator in the past. It’s, it’s good. I think, if you can afford it, there’s value there. I’m not currently using it. But I think LinkedIn is probably outside of CRM is the biggest tool that that I use right now. Email, LinkedIn, I mean, I hardly pick up a phone anymore. It’s, it’s crazy. When you know, what used to be 100% Phone driven, you know, occupation that then was more email is now you know, zoom and email, and Docusign.

Christopher Smith
The best advice I ever got for LinkedIn engagement, was treat LinkedIn, like you’re at a cocktail party, you’re at a cocktail party, you go up and introduce someone, you’re not trying to sell them right away. You’re trying to, you know, where you’re from, you know, what, you know, oh, I noticed you, you know, you went to Ohio State or whatever. And, and, you know, you start a conversation.

Paul Steinmetz
Yeah, it’s a great tool for job hunt for job seekers. And for finding staffing. Definitely, I think it has become a leader in that space. But yeah, I agree completely, that when you come out of the gate with a real strong sales pitch, on LinkedIn, it doesn’t come across, right, it’s not the right environment for that. Now, the advertising could totally different story, but using the InMail and trying to, you know, get a connection with somebody to then hit them over the head. And that’s different than saying, hey, I see you’re in this industry would love to take you out to coffee sometime. It that’s different, right? I think that is a bit more acceptable. There’s ways to go about it, that are professional, but again, you know, if you do that a week and a half after you become friends with somebody two weeks later, and it’s not, here’s my company, here’s my this is my dad’s like, Hey, I’m going to be in New York next week, I’d love to take you out for coffee, learn more about what you do. Right? I don’t want to tell you about what I do. I want to learn about what you do. It’s a big, that’s a big difference. Right. And I think that that is more effective than literally, and you know, my best advice if you’re watching this, and you’ve been doing that you’ve been hitting people on LinkedIn, and sending them your sales, you know, pitch an InMail. Right away, stop that immediately. Unless it’s working for you, which I can’t believe that it is no, there’s no way.

Christopher Smith
Yes.

Paul Steinmetz
I find that that’s not an effective strategy. Yeah.

Christopher Smith
You mentioned CRM as your other tool that you use CRM, do you love it? Or do you hate it?

Paul Steinmetz
Gosh, I mean, depends on the day, some days, I love to hate it. Some days, I you know, a database is only as good as your data. A pipeline is only as good as you know, the leads that you’re putting into it and the stages that you’re using. There’s a lot of different schools of thought on CRM, and I’ve used pretty much them all. Um, I think the best advice I’ve been given recently is treating your pipeline as only law real opportunities, right. And so, they come in you had a conversation with somebody, but they didn’t have a specific deal sale to speak of. That’s a contact, right? You want to market to that person, but you don’t have a specific piece of business. Now you’ve talked to them they have they want to buy, that then becomes an opportunity. And depending on your pipeline, what stage it falls in, you want to move them through your pipeline relatively quickly for whatever your typical sales timeframe is. But at the end, they are closed last or close one. And that does not mean they can’t come back into your pipeline, if you lose it, that another opportunity can’t come back from that same quiet and move through to a closed one. But I had years ago, kept everything in a stage one and move things back to stage one and just had a pipeline that was full of dead wood, right. And so, in cleaning that up and really having a highly efficient pipeline that they were running through it one way or the other, I was going to find out if it’s a closed loss, get it the hell out and make room for somebody new. And really streamlining my pipeline was a game change, for me really a totally different approach of looking at it.

Christopher Smith
We do that a lot with clients where I had one client where they had deals that were over three years old, that have not progressed at all. And you talk to the sales guy, oh, no, this, this is still, you know, the lead. Right? So still needs to be in the pipeline. So, you know, we’re like, You’re nuts.

Paul Steinmetz
That’s, that’s great. Bring it back into the pipeline. Exactly. If it offers, so

Christopher Smith
we’d still reach out, talk to him every once in a while. But that is not in the pipeline. Right?

Paul Steinmetz
Yeah. So marketing. Contacts. Yeah, you can market to your, to your deals as well. And even different marketing messages. Yeah. But having that and as a sales guy, that’s tough to do, right? We don’t want to move things to close loss. We don’t want our pipeline that had 100 deals in it now to only have really the 15 that are real, and we’re having real conversation with because that looks a little different. I’ve got 100 deals in my pipeline, right? And I think being honest with yourself and taking a genuine look at what’s real, if I haven’t had a real conversation with these people, if they’re not responding to my email, if I haven’t talked to this person, and then three weeks or a month, close last, you know, what if he calls me tomorrow, great, new opportunity, same guy, same, everything starts on a fresh date, that was instrumental, it’s so much easier to manage visually 20 or 30 prospects, and really effectively communicate with them. Everything we talked about, you know, like their posts on LinkedIn, send an email, follow up all the marketing that goes along with it. Then if you’ve got 100 things sitting in your pipeline, it just becomes a bit overwhelming.

Christopher Smith
No, it is it will we convinced that group is a we’re gonna close stale, but we’re going to close it. And then we’re going to leverage CRM to send you a reminder that says, hey, follow up with this contact in three months. So, you’re not losing visibility, it’s still there. But it’s not in our pipeline, distorting our forecast. And in making us think like, we’ve got $100 million pipeline in reality, you got bored like that $10 million pipeline.

Paul Steinmetz
That’s it, right. And that’s the, that’s the beauty of the CRM is when you use it correctly, you can really dial in your forecasting, you can be organized, with your sales outreach with all of your tasks, your follow up your reminders. It’s a tool, right? It’s, it’s if you use it too, effectively, it can do a lot of great things. If you don’t, right, I’ve got you know, I’m dealing right now where there’s a lot of contacts that don’t have any email in it, or there are a couple of years old. And I’m dealing right now with a big cleanup project. And it’s, you know, it’s frustrating when you’re coming into something new. And again, your database is only as good as your data

Christopher Smith
100% agree. That’s the foundation of everything. And that’s always like, if you’re dealing with CRM, you’re coming into a new situation with CRM, focus on your data, first, get that squared away, because if your data can’t be trusted, nothing else matters. That’s got to get your data

Paul Steinmetz
squared away, if you’re starting out, or if you’re Junior, or a new business owner, know that going in that it’s so much easier to do it right the first time than to start untangling a bunch of spider webs and having all this corrupt data or incomplete data. You know, I think it’s important to really give it some thought, you know, what’s your end goal? What are the true metrics you’re trying to capture? Both for financials as well as customer profiles? What funnels are you looking to set up? You know, for tracking your advertising, what, you know what different drip campaigns and so I think there’s a lot of great tools that CRM provides, providing you use them correctly, right. And I’ve worked with wonderful marketing directors who really knew how to structure campaigns that were just very high-level drip campaigns based on what you clicked, you got different and doing a B testing and really figuring out what works. And I’ve worked for marketing directors who had no idea, and it was kind of rudimentary marketing not tied to the CRM and you know, obviously, is as much as you can integrate your marketing channels with into your CRM to keep tabs on that. I found that to be very useful.

Christopher Smith
Well, Paul, we’re at our time here on this episode of sales lead dog, I really appreciate you coming on the show. If people want to reach out and connect with you learn more about you and and in your company. What’s the best way for them to do that?

Paul Steinmetz
Yeah, I would say LinkedIn, Paul Steinmetz on LinkedIn with travel leaders corporate, and then I’m happy to reach out and again, you know, for anyone who has any meetings or events or group travel, certainly here to help or if you just have any sales questions, or looking for some advice, my doors always open.

Christopher Smith
That’s awesome. And we’ll have that contact info in our show notes. Be sure to check that out. Paul, thank you for coming on sales lead dog.

Paul Steinmetz
Thanks, Chris was a pleasure chatting with you.

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.

 

Quotes

Links

Paul Steinmetz LinkedIn
Travel Leaders Corporate, LLC LinkedIn
Travel Leaders Corporate, LLC Website

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