# Swell AI Transcript: S2 Ep14Tom & Scott.mp3

Dave Meyer:
Welcome to Dial It In, a podcast where we talk with interesting people about the process improvements and tricks they use to grow their businesses. I'm Dave Meyer, president of BusyWeb. And every week, Trigby Olson and I are bringing you interviews on how the best in their fields are dialing it in for their organizations.


Trygve Olsen:
Dave, I got some feedback about the podcast.


Dave Meyer:
Oh, really? Well, I'm super curious to hear what it is.


Trygve Olsen:
A lot of good things. A lot of people find that we're fun and we're interesting and we're engaging to talk to, but we have a tendency to talk over each other. I don't think that's true at all.


Dave Meyer:
No, that's not the case.


Trygve Olsen:
Yeah, we never do that.


Dave Meyer:
Not here.


Trygve Olsen:
It's, we're recording this as sort of the end of the year. And one of the things that we do at Busy Rob is we help people get on their CRMs. And one of the things that I had answered, or the question I had answered for about the 112th time was, well, my salespeople really don't like using CRMs. So I thought, you know what, let's combine those two things. Let's, instead of actually trying to solve the problem of how we can stop talking over each other, Let's actually invite more people and then actually talk about the question. So I, I brought some friends today. First time on the podcast, we have a returning guest, Professor Plum from the Minnesota Sales Institute. Hey, Scott. Hey, thanks for having me. Great to be here. Thank you. And Tom Hoelderle from Sales Xcelleration who is also now the general manager of a printing consortium and packaging consortium in Mankato. Congratulations, Tom. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. I think the question of the day is, why don't salespeople want to use a CRM? And there's any number of answers to it. But Scott, why do you think salespeople don't want to use a CRM?


Professor Scott Plum:
Well, I think they want to be able to have conversations and be in the moment, but they don't know if there's going to be a future one or not, or maybe they don't know what they want to say if they had another one. And they probably have said to their sales manager, you know, you don't pay me to enter stuff into the computer. I didn't take a typing class, so I don't want to keep stuff in a computer. Why do you make me do this? Is it that you're trying to take over my job or eliminate me or distribute my accounts based on everything that I've entered into the CRM? I think I've heard that a lot. And I'm curious, Tom, if you heard some of that, too, when you worked with sales teams.


Tom Hoelderle:
Oh, absolutely. In fact, in my former life, years ago, I actually fought it. I fought a CRM implementation. I was on the other side, absolutely. I would say that a lot of it starts with overall strategy. And this is where you guys from BusyWeb come in. I think the fundamental mistake that many organizations make is when they are looking at implementing CRM, they are not giving much consideration to how will this enhance and add value to the sales process. In my experience, the number one reason for implementing CRM is that senior management wants visibility to the sales pipeline. And that's not necessarily a bad reason, but in my opinion, that can't be the primary reason. The primary reason has to be that it adds value. And that's where it all starts.


Dave Meyer:
Yeah. And I think for a lot of times, and I'm speaking as my experience, of course, as well, but you know, CRM that's dumb and that doesn't really help is definitely one of the big problems for how do you keep people excited and interested in it? Because wow, if, if you're asking them to jump through a bunch of hoops that they wouldn't have otherwise, then what happens?


Trygve Olsen:
I think that so much of sales is like baseball pitching. You are out with the ball in your hand and you can really do win or lose a game all by yourself. And there are times in which you can win, there are times in which you can lose, and then there are times in which you work on your support team. And I think there's so many different ways to contact and there's so many people who are trying to sell badly. I mean, how many times have you guys gotten the email Hey, first name, let me tell you what I do. Want to get on call for 15 minutes? It's like, no, no, no, I don't. And then they're getting aggressive in the follow up. Oh, well, you didn't answer my my email. So I'm putting it to the top. Well, that's because your email was pointless to begin with. Now you've just pissed me off. Right. And so salespeople are kind of put upon in an organization. They People don't understand that when you're working with a job that's 85% negative, if you're lucky, and then they're saying, oh, well, now we want you to document your work. I think there's a natural inclination to say, you have no appreciation for what I do. And I think that's kind of where the sales person starts from. But I think the Tom's point too is, If you really want to start with, if you're going to, you can't just say, I want to know what my salespeople are doing because they're not going to tell you and they're not going to do it. But the next step is what value? The question I would ask you, Tom, is, is it valuable for them? Is it for the salespeople or the organization when you talk about adding value? Absolutely.


Tom Hoelderle:
It's got to be It has to add value to the individual sales rep, first and foremost. It's got to make their job easier. It's got to make them more efficient. enhance their productivity, all of those kind of things. And I think some of it goes to scoping out what the needs are. You know, it's easy just to drop in a CRM, but I think going back to the overall strategy, what do you need your CRM to do? You know, most small companies, they want a place to maintain customer contacts. They want to store quotes, proposals, things like that. They want to do some marketing. They want to track follow up. It's pretty basic. And I think in some cases, companies jump in too far. They get something that's way too complex. And that inhibits the adoption because it's such a monumental tool that salespeople are kind of get dumped in their lap. And, you know, they just don't feel comfortable with it. And it's a Scott's point there, definitely, especially with more tenure, I guess, is the word salespeople. There is a fear that CRM is basically going to make them somewhat irrelevant. And a lot of sales reps fear the accountability that comes with CRM. And so, yes, there can be a lot of resistance.


Trygve Olsen:
I want to interrupt you there because you're being kind. When you say tenured, you're really talking about old, right?


Tom Hoelderle:
Right. In my former organization, we didn't use that word. We said tenured. People like me that are north of 50 are slow adopters.


Trygve Olsen:
Yeah. And that's really a technology issue more than, but I think you're right. The psychology to start with is way in the olden days when everybody was together and everybody was banging out phone calls, you really could see what everybody's doing and you could tell who's working and who's not and who's spending too much time with the water cooler and who's not. But Now, you can't really do that with the variety of different ways to contact from a salesperson standpoint. Again, now all of a sudden, back in the day, 25, 30 years ago, you had a phone and a phone book and you wished good luck. But now you've got Twitter, you've got TikTok, LinkedIn, email, all of these people getting fired at all the time. which makes your job incredibly harder because now all of a sudden you have to deal with all the noise that people have and you have to be interesting and unique enough and provided a value for the prospect. But dammit, now you want me to write all this down? Like Scott said, you don't pay me to do that. You pay me for results.


Professor Scott Plum:
Getting the results is part of the process. And it seems like salespeople are kind of complaining that, you know, their prospects are commoditizing their product and service. And the prospects are saying, you know, you only are going to buy from me if I have the cheapest price. And the prospect's saying, well, you know what? You haven't really created a lot of value in the conversation. where you've created a different criteria other than price. And salespeople can use a CRM to keep relevant information that is important to that particular prospect so that you're sharing the value that they're looking for in working with you as a salesperson when it comes to a future engagement, a future relationship. There needs to be also some sales techniques and strategies, like Tom mentioned, about using a CRM. You also have to have that in the behavior. So when I work with a group, I say, you know, to salespeople, you know, you're going to call people and you're going to leave messages. I would probably say, I'm guessing about 80% of the time. you're going to leave a message. And what are you going to say in that message that's going to create the most value? You can say, I know you're busy. I introduced myself. Here's what we do. I don't want to assume you have any problems in that area or that you need my help. I'd be interested in having a brief conversation to see if it's worth scheduling a call. Please call me back at this number. If I don't hear from you, I'll call you back in two days. Now you can really only keep track of that activity in a CRM. So you log a call and then you schedule a call. Then what is every sales manager always talking about? What is every statistic always about when it comes to salespeople? Is that the most important step in a sales conversation is follow up. How can you build value if you don't follow through on your promises? So if you say you're going to call somebody, you put it in the CRM, I'm going to call you, you know, in two days and you follow up and then say, I'm just following up on the promise that I left earlier on the voicemail that I left. And I'm guessing that you don't get a lot of follow up calls, which is why I'm calling. And I'd be grateful to have a conversation to see if it's worth scheduling a deeper meeting, maybe Zoom or in person or something like that. You can only do that with a CRM. And as salespeople and as listeners, you know, how many people follow up when they leave a message with you. How many people really follow up when they leave a message with you? Now, in the email automation, all we want, we can get into sales automation all we want. We can get into sequencing all we want. Salespeople should be threatened by that, not, well, I can't put stuff in the CRM because then my boss is going to take it and then. you know, cut me loose. No, I mean, salespeople should be more intimidated by sales automation replacing their jobs than them having a personal conversation that's relevant to a prospect that has kept track of the CRM. And that's my rant. I'll take questions from the gallery.


Trygve Olsen:
One of the, one of the important things that happened to me, especially early in my career at BusyWeb is because we, we did not use the CRM when I started and we had one and it was, it was nice and it was fancy and we didn't really use it. Dave didn't use it even though he won't admit it.


Dave Meyer:
Honestly, it was kind of annoying. I don't blame you for not using it.


Trygve Olsen:
Yeah. But I can remember, and this was probably eight or nine years ago, where Dave just sort of passing in the hall mentioned sort of lightly and comically, hey, somebody called and complained about you. And then he kept walking. And I was like, what? And he's like, oh, yeah, it's fine. And he kept walking. And I was like... And it ticked me off for about two days. So finally, I went in his office, OK, you threw this down at what on earth? He said, OK, so here's the person who called the complaint. Here's what they said about you. They said, refer to prospect to you and that you specifically didn't give him the title. And I said, well, that's not true. And he goes, yeah, I know.


Dave Meyer:
I listened to the call.


Trygve Olsen:
What do you mean? He said, well, I see the two follow-up emails that you send and then the hour and a half you spent on the phone with the guy. So I told him that. So why are you in here? And I was like, uh, I don't know. So I've never really been afraid to document my activity because that's the question that I ask salespeople is, well, when they say they don't want to do it, what are you afraid of? And they're afraid of people aren't going to appreciate everything that I do. A, they're not going to do it if you don't show them what you're doing because they're not going to see it. And B, what else do you have to go on if you're not selling them?


Tom Hoelderle:
I think early on, though, in in the early days of CRM, after a company implemented for the wrong reason, then the next error that they made was they, in my words, they weaponized it. The CRM became a tool just to beat people up versus, in your case, it was a tool that actually came to your aid, you know, to make your case. Getting people to adopt it really depends upon how management also implements and utilizes it, how it becomes part of the sales cadence, how people are held accountable but don't use it as a tool to beat people up. I think one of the things that's changed in recent history that I think is going to go a long way to more senior people adopting is, you know, treat me, you know, sometimes, you know, you did a demo for me on HubSpot. And the automation levels have increased so much. Or one of the reasons, you know, salespeople did adopt is because of all the intensive data entry. Yes. And now with some of the features of the HubSpot where, you know, it saved your phone conversation and automatically, you know, downloads a lot of data. That's a major time saver. And that goes a long way to adding value. And so I think that's going to really help newer generations of CRM be adopted much more readily.


Dave Meyer:
Yeah, I want to jump in here for a second, Trigvy, because I think this is, this is super interesting. To me as a manager, one of the things that I know that my team needs is not just accountability, but the ability to save time. And so a lot of the new CRM stuff, HubSpot is our, our favorite example at BusyWeb. But if you give people tools to help them save time and to help them be more effective, they're more likely to use it as long as that's clear. but you have to set that up and it's as much as or it's as much onboarding and getting people interested in here's the wins behind this tool and oh by the way we also have AI so it's not only going to record your calls but it's going to give you the three follow-ups out of the AI tool so that you know what you have to do and it's going to save you all that time all you need to do is research your prospect talk to them in a human way and let the system do the heavy lifting for you That's an entirely different conversation than, well, write down your crap, but I want to see seven different things. I mean, there's playbooks available, there's automated follow-up and tasks, but you have to set it up right if it's going to work for you.


Trygve Olsen:
You guys are all in and out of companies and you're all sales leaders. I think I would certainly probably be included in that too in some way. What would you say to an employer who says, I really want a CRM, but I feel like if I buy that and implement it, then all my sales guys are going to quit. I've heard that three times this year.


Professor Scott Plum:
It's a great question. You know, when I talked to a sales person or they're kind of pushing back on a CRM and I said, okay, today's Thursday, who was the first call that you're going to make on next Wednesday? And they're like, what? Look at your calendar on Wednesday and tell me who the most important call is on your calendar, your to-do list, your scheduled activities on Wednesday. Tell me who that is. Well, I don't know who that is yet. We're not at Wednesday yet. I said, oh, okay. So, You're going to let things happen instead of make things happen. So you're going to be reactive instead of proactive. You should know what your schedule is like on Wednesday. You should know what meetings you have. You should know what phone calls you're following up on. You should have conversations where there are clear futures and meetings happening to discuss your proposal, to understand the criteria, to deliver the solution and expectations that your prospect wants. And that's in a follow-up call. So on Wednesday, tell me, who are you going to call first? You know, cue the crickets. They have no idea. I said, how can you plan your time? How can you make good time trades? How can you shorten the sales cycle, increase the closing ratio, increase the profit margins, treat people like they're special and they want to work with you? How do you do that? And you can't do that without a CRM. And I can look at a sales rep that has a CRM and I can say, wow, look at all your scheduled activities in the next week or the next two weeks. and then they can look at their calendar and they can say to their prospects, you know, I'm looking at my pipeline right now and I'm not going to be able to call you until next Thursday afternoon. Can we schedule a call then? Wow, you're really busy. I am really busy. There's a lot of people that I'm working with right now and I want to be able to give them the full attention that you deserve and I want to be able to schedule some time where we can follow up on our conversation." Boom. Now you're just using the CRM to plan your time. How stress relieving is that? Knowing you can come into the office, set down your cup of coffee, throw your jacket over the chair, turn on your computer, open up the CRM and say, okay. Let's go and read the notes, make the calls, follow up. You're going to have a purpose. You're going to have a sense of fulfillment when you do that instead of just reacting and waiting for somebody to call you back or send you an email about sending me more information. Okay, what information do you want me to send you? You can't send it. What are you going to send them? The only thing that you can really send them is what's most valuable. A CRM keeps track of that.


Trygve Olsen:
Go ahead. I call that the Minnesota no when somebody gets in 10 minutes and sends me a proposal. You don't want a proposal. You want me to go away.


Professor Scott Plum:
Have you ever been there? Have you been through that? Yeah.


Tom Hoelderle:
I was going to say that, you know, like I mentioned in my, in my former life, many years ago, I fought CRM and the company started to put an implementation team together without me. And I said, how come I'm not on the team? And they said, well, because you're against it. And I said, yes, I am. But I said, I've done my research. And the CRM at the time that they were looking at implementing, I'd done my research and the reviews were negative. And I said, you know, you've never asked me why I'm against it. And I said, I would love to have somebody do a demo for me to show me how this thing is going to improve my life. And then I'll get on board. And so turning back to your question about if you have a client that says, well, if we just implement CRM, no one's going to use it. The best thing I can recommend is show how it's going to make their lives easier. Show how it's got automation that is going to automatically save their conversations, save their correspondence, help them with AI tools for further outreach, things like that. That's where you're going to get people on board is physically see it, touch it, play with it, and learn that, hey, this thing is not the big bad wolf that everybody said it was. And that's how I finally came around. Once I had more experience with it, it opened the doors for me.


Dave Meyer:
So anyway. So are you saying you have to have a sales conversation with your sales team to sell them on the CRM? Yes.


Tom Hoelderle:
You have to, just like any other software, you have to have heavy user involvement during the ramp up and the implementation process or you will not have an option.


Trygve Olsen:
Well, I wouldn't go that far. I think you need to ask salespeople what they want because they're going to be the primary drivers of adding things. But then absolutely do not let them in on the implementation because then unless it's completely done because they have short attention spans they don't want to do it in the best of all possible worlds And then if you show them something that's half done and then tell them, oh yeah, we haven't gotten to them yet, that's going to double down on, see, I told you this wasn't real. So you've got to have it all done. Much like selling, you have to think of all the reasons to not let somebody say no. And at that point, the only thing that they have is to say yes. I'm really surprised that you guys would double down on features and benefits, because I think to me, when somebody says, hey, I think my salespeople are all going to quit if I implement this new technology. My response to that is, I think you need new salespeople, Dan.


Tom Hoelderle:
Could be. The challenge with that, though, Trigg, being in this market and you're familiar with an organization I was working with that had that exact issue. Once again, very senior salespeople, very successful. The company couldn't survive if we turned them all over, which is probably what we shouldn't have done. In this job market, that's just not an option. So somehow you've got to get them on board or take the strategy of, okay, the senior team, we're just going to let them keep doing what they're doing. And we're going to start kind of bringing in our Gen 2 sales force. And they're the ones who are going to be the adopters. And, you know, this is where we're going in the future.


Trygve Olsen:
Cause that's the other way to deal with that is the, if, if, if the grouchy kid on the playground doesn't want to have fun, okay, well we're going to go over here and have fun. And then sooner or later, like that kid's going to feel like he's left out.


Dave Meyer:
Well, especially when that sales team that's accountable is actually outperforming that sales guy or gal.


Professor Scott Plum:
Scott, are you grimacing or smiling? I am, you know, I'm thinking about some of the things that Tom said when it comes to the adoption. And salespeople are joining companies, leaving companies, territories are being managed and shrunken and reduced. And, you know, within those territories, there's more products. So then the company rolls out more products and they roll out more salespeople. And they say, we're going to shrink your territory because now you've got more products to sell and we want you to, you know, more relationships within a concentrated territory. And I always say to the salespeople, you know, if you want to defend your activities, I will tell you the rule is if it's not in the CRM, it didn't happen. So that's on day one. If it's not in the CRM, it didn't happen. Yeah, I can look at call logs and I can look at emails and you know, that's all great. But we're having a personal conversation. This is a salesperson having a personal conversation with somebody. You have to document that. And if it didn't happen, you know, it didn't happen. because it wasn't in the CRM. If it happened, it should be in the CRM. I want to come to your aid and defend you salespeople. If it's in the CRM, document it and then say, I called them six times. They never called me back. And here are, here's the dates that I called them. And you're in a great position, but you got to be able to defend yourself in the role that you have by logging your activities.


Trygve Olsen:
And part of that, I think, is if you're going to have a CRM, you're going to have a wealth of data at your fingertips. And I'm going to pick on Dave here to make a very specific point, is Dave this year didn't sell as much as I did, but I think he still had a very... I just had to get that first part in first, obviously. Yeah, yeah. You didn't flinch either. He still had a very successful year. And if you go week to week, I would say there probably hasn't been a week all year where I haven't made twice as many phone calls as today.


Professor Scott Plum:
Exactly.


Trygve Olsen:
So those two pieces of information, I sold more than Dave. I called more people than Dave. Does that mean that he is deficient as a salesperson? A lot of times managers are going to say yes to that because, well, you didn't hit the call numbers that I wanted. You weren't number one. But one of the things that I will tell you is Dave makes half as many phone calls as I do, but on average, he's on the phone for twice as long as I am. So he's having deeper conversations that gets back to your point, Scott. If you're going to defend the work, you got to show your work.


Dave Meyer:
You need to have a tool that'll actually let you do that. Because if you just had an Excel spreadsheet that you were running off of, you just know the number of calls and that, and instead you can look at it. And in our case, you can look at the tenor of those conversations. You can look at the tone and you can get the outcomes. right out of the tool and you could say, okay, well it looks like the content or the conversations that Dave has go deeper, quicker, and tend to take a little bit longer. So maybe that's just because Dave is cherry picking the funnest leads and he can get into conversation with them. Maybe it's that, you know, there's all kinds of other things that are happening, but it lets you actually coach and help that person be successful. One of my favorite quotes, and this is pithy and kind of terrible, but one of my favorite quotes about salespeople is that they're coin operated. And if you give someone a compensation and goal, like you will make more money if you do these three things, there's a higher likelihood with the sales oriented, with a successful salesperson. that you'd be like, yeah game on, show it to me. But if you're looking at someone that you probably should be trying to get rid of in the first place, if they balk at, here's the four things that you need to do to make more money, you're like, oh no, but I really need a nap in the middle of the day. That's probably not your person, right? So, it helps you guide it.


Professor Scott Plum:
Tom, you were going to sit on his way earlier.


Tom Hoelderle:
I interrupted you, Tom. I was just going to say, I've got some good performance improvement tools I can send you. Oh, bring it. You can work on this.


Trygve Olsen:
Yeah, I work with Dave's wife. We frequently together ask, like, how can we get him to do this? Both of us just kind of shrugging. I don't know. I don't know. Do you know? No. All right. Well, moving on.


Tom Hoelderle:
I think one of the challenges with CRM though is with all of this data from a management perspective, you really have to refrain from micromanaging. Oh yeah, I think there's a real propensity to all this now is readily available and people want to dig in and start kind of picking away at it and that will be counterproductive for the Salesforce.


Professor Scott Plum:
It's a great opportunity for coaching and not necessarily micromanaging. And salespeople will say, stop micromanaging me. I am not micromanaging you. I am proactively managing you. I am talking about stuff that we need to talk about in a proactive way before it becomes a reactive situation. before it becomes a performance improvement plan because you're not keeping up with the expectations that we have of you. When I was selling websites at Thomson Reuters, this is going to really surprise some people, back in 1997 to 1999 when websites were first coming out. I'm selling websites to attorneys on the East Coast. I was the number one sales rep inside the company in my department. Why? Because I made more up on phone calls than anybody else did. I still have a call tracking reports to prove it. How was I able to do that? I was the only one that went out and bought a CRM system and asked the IT department to install it on my computer. And I entered in every record that I called on, even though the information was not there, I entered it and then I would get into a follow-up machine and I would make 50 phone calls a day. I would have on a good day, four conversations. My best days of having conversations were on Friday. The only way that I would know all that is if I kept track of that in the CRM. And look at the results. I doubled my quota. I was a number one sales rep. And I worked for a technology company that did not have a CRM for their salespeople. And now they do. And you can see the implementation of it over the years and the impact that Corporate America is going to require that salespeople use a CRM to maintain information and conversations.


Trygve Olsen:
So if you're in management now and you've got salespeople under you and you've been in management before, what are some of the things that you look at as KPIs to help salespeople not only achieve their goals, but also from a management perspective? What are the things that you look for?


Tom Hoelderle:
Some of the basic ones, as Scott mentioned, what is the frequency? How many calls are we making? I'm going to look at quality of the contacts that they have. Are they talking to the right people? And then I'm going to look at the velocity. How are opportunities moving through the system? You know, are they stalling out? If they are stalling out, why are they stalled out? Do we need to do some coaching? Do we need to present to the customer in a different way? You know, those are some of the key things that I look at. At the end of the day, if we're making our sales numbers, that's the ultimate measurement. Are we hitting our revenue targets? So, you know, I don't, unless there's issues, I don't really dig into it a whole lot. Dave, what do you think?


Dave Meyer:
Yeah, I really think it's more about are we having the right conversations? And I tend to get a little bit nerdier where I like to just dip into ears. The ultimate goal of my sales. And so what I need is people that can handle and have the conversations that are going to get me to that spot. And so I'm much more likely to want to drive in and say, OK, well, I know you need to hit numbers but I'm also more into the coaching mindset to say okay well I heard that last conversation or you know it seemed like that conversation that we sat in on together went off the rails a little bit and that person shut down as soon as you mentioned X. So how could we have done better around that to get more to or to get past the problems that that person had or their issues with, you know, I don't want to buy your product because it costs money and I don't have money. And he's like, okay, well, how do we actually build the need then and have a conversation? I'm more qualitative inside of that, I guess. And that's one of the reasons why I like having a system where I can look at that kind of data and help coach through that.


Tom Hoelderle:
sales is a process and don't need the expression of you know amateurs embrace the outcome professionals embrace the process and you know that's kind of when I look at it if the process is moving and we've got a good process the results should kind of take care of themselves. And so that's where I focus on. Where are deals stalling out and why? Kind of like what Dave said, you know, where are the coaching opportunities? Scott, what do you have?


Professor Scott Plum:
I think it's so true to be able to have the coaching opportunities at the time when they're most relevant. And what I love about HubSpot is you can record calls within the program. You can listen to the calls. you can do it in a way that is not demeaning or berating a salesperson, but you can really talk about that incremental growth, the small changes reinforced over time, they're gonna have the biggest results. I had an interview this week with Susan Scott who wrote the book Fierce Conversations, and during her process of mineral rights, which is the difference between water skiing and scuba diving, when you go for mineral rights, you're scuba diving, you're going down deep, you're getting into deep, deep, deep details. And one of the questions in our process is, how do you feel about that? And that's a different question than, how does that make you feel? Because nothing can make you feel anything. It's up to you to determine what you feel and then what you act on and what decisions that you make. And a small change in just that word, make you feel, or just feel, is going to change a conversation. I work with, you know, working with salespeople, I say, you know, stop using to be honest with you. I just cringe every time that somebody says it to me. I go, okay.


Dave Meyer:
I've been dishonest with you until now, but no.


Professor Scott Plum:
Let me cross out everything that you said before, and now we're going to talk about that. The only way that I really know about that is, you know, through a coaching call. And going through that particular technique that that salesperson used, another one that salespeople use is, you know, what do I have to do to get your business? Oh, okay, so all the pressure is on you. Well, the prospect's going to come back and say, well, if you cut your price 65%, where do I sign today?


Trygve Olsen:
Yeah, that's such a dumb question. No prospects. Oh, well, thank you for asking. Let me explain to you all the ways in which you've done it. You don't actually want an answer to that question. You just want to get to the end. I'm sorry, Scott, I interrupted. I have a rant about that too.


Professor Scott Plum:
That's all right. So the response is, what has to happen for us to work together? Now we're having a mutual conversation to a common goal, if we really want to work together. And I just stress that desired outcome that we all want, and how do we get there? Like Tom said, it is a process. How do you keep track of the steps in the process? And how do you maximize every step? And maximize every step is to shorten the sales cycle, increase the closing ratio. How can you do that? You can only manage two conversations in your head. You can't do it any other way.


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Trygve Olsen:
I'd be curious to know your guys' take on this, and then I want to get back to the concept of CRM. But one of the things that I, as part of my responsibilities at BusyWeb is I teach a class for HubSpot Academy on pipeline generation, which is basically about how to build relationships on the phone. And so many people who are, I would say between the ages of 25 and 35, have before using the phone.


Dave Meyer:
And all the phones- Yeah, it's a terrifying tool.


Trygve Olsen:
is dead and absolutely not, why on earth would I call people when I can email them? So my question to the three of you is this, is the phone dead in 2024?


Professor Scott Plum:
No, absolutely not. Tom, do you want to elaborate on that?


Trygve Olsen:
Okay, great. Well, next question.


Tom Hoelderle:
No, I don't have the statistics off the top of my head, but if you've done your research on the prospect and you have a compelling story to tell, the response rate via phone is still significantly high. In some cases, it may actually be higher than email. I'd have to go back and pull those stats, but phone is not dead. It's almost kind of like direct mail. 20 years ago, everybody was like, hey, I got an email. And now it's like, hey, I got something in the mailbox. I think maybe we're coming full circle to some of the older technologies. But it still has a high acceptance rate.


Dave Meyer:
I think the age of artful conversations is upon us. You need to have a good reason to chat. And that's kind of tough for people that aren't all that used to having voice conversations as much as they used to. But I think that's also an opportunity for people to break the mold a little bit. and to maybe just say, okay, here's the deal. It's like, I forget who did this. It might've been Brian Tracy, but he was like, I like picking up the phone and saying, hey, I found some money for you. I believe I have your wallet here or something. And I need you to call me back. And here's the number. And the most important thing I need you to know is, and then hang up. Right. So that, that'll, that's going to guarantee a callback, right? What, what are the fun ways that you can do that and then get right to helpful and interesting conversations? Even if you're young, you still have verbal conversations with people in your life and it's still much more meaningful than the equivalent of texting, Hey, you up? Trying to get with your prospects and get in there. You know, spam calls or telemarketing calls where it's all just trying to boiler room sell. Yeah, of course. That's, that's not great. And that's not helpful, but you're asking a couple of questions and Tom, you really nailed it first. When you said, if you do your research and you know that you can provide that need. So that person is like, I have three things that are going to make your life better. Do you mind having a quick conversation? where I can show that to you. And then if it works out, we can work together. And if it's not, you at least got those little tidbits. And that's helpful. That's easy. That's not selling. That's helping.


Trygve Olsen:
That's a really good lesson I actually learned from Scott is getting people to call you back isn't hard. I can get anybody in the world call me back within 30 minutes. So Dave, you clearly don't know what you're doing and clearly you are not the person who really owns the pants in that company. So since you're clearly not the one that have no smarts or have no availability to make good decisions, Can you let me know who the right person to talk to is? Guarantee you within 15 minutes he was going to be calling back with Effenheimers flying left, right, and center. It works. Yeah, it works 60% of the time. It works every time. So the challenge is getting people to want to call you back. And that you have to develop relationships. I want to hear what Scott says, because I have audited the Scott Plum School of Selling for a long time. How many people do you only talk to via email? And how much money have you given them over the years? Oh, right. Good point. So, none? Okay, so why do you think that the converse is going to be true, that you're going to be able to write such an effective email that people are going to give you money? Because if that's true, I have a Nigerian friend to introduce you to who really needs your help.


Professor Scott Plum:
Right. Could be a lot of money coming your way if you comply. Yeah. Yeah, that's a very good point, Trigby, on getting people to call you back versus them wanting to have a conversation with you.


Trygve Olsen:
It's your point.


Professor Scott Plum:
I just took it. Thank you. Thank you. But you applied it and I think that's the biggest step in any behavior modification is somebody hearing something and going, you know, that makes a lot of sense. I think I'm going to try that. And you tried it enough times that you refined it and it works for you. And now it's part of your style and your process. And that takes guts and courage because you had to step outside your comfort zone to do something different, which people just really, really hesitate to do. And, you know, in those relevant conversations, you're building a reputation. As a consumer, I get really frustrated when I'm having a challenge with a product or a service and I can't get a hold of anybody. Drives me freaking nuts. And I'll go in through the sales door every single day and I'll get somebody and I will be so, oh, I will be so, they'll be so compassionate and I will just struggle so much and I will get to the right person. by doing that. And unfortunately, I have to go through that door. But why do these companies have these customer avoidance systems where you can't talk to anybody at a company? And then us as salespeople, we go, well, nobody wants to talk to me. Wait a minute. That's not true. How do you know that? And salespeople are so assumptive, thinking that nobody wants to talk to them or return a phone call. It's having a relevant conversation. I've got a good friend. Every time he calls me, I never answer the phone because that's 43 minutes that I will never get back.


Trygve Olsen:
That's why you never answer when I call.


Professor Scott Plum:
If you can put it in a message, I'll listen to the message. And if there's enough relevant information for me to call you back, I'll call you back. But what happens is they call me back two days later because I didn't call them back. complete reverse of how it should be done.


Tom Hoelderle:
I know we're kind of digressing here, but just as an example, a company that I used to do business with went from startup to over 400 million in 25 years. And one of the things that was the differentiator, when you walked into that company, they had two receptionists at the front desk. And I always thought that was interesting. Everywhere else you go, it's like, well, you know, there's a phone outside a locked door in a lobby and you got to type a code and reach somebody to get let in. This company had two receptionists full time.


Trygve Olsen:
Wow. So what did you learn from that? I've learned from episodes of Mad Men.


Tom Hoelderle:
No, I, what I, and I've had my own, my own experience too, is that, you know, trying to reach business, you know, as a potential buyer, you know, you get sent a voicemail, you get bounced around, whatever, you never hear back versus companies where somebody actually answers the phone. Yeah. They get my business. And so, yeah, I think the same thing, you know, on the other side of the phone is how do you get to the right people? How do you make it meaningful? How do you show them or demonstrate what's in it for them? And I think that's key is that too many people who do make phone calls start off, well, hey, you know what? Let me show you something. Let me, let me tell you how you can save money. You don't know anything about me. You know, you don't know anything about my business. So why, why are you starting off with how you think you can save me money when we haven't even had a conversation yet? And so I think that's also where CRM coming full circle, going back to that, some of these AI tools, you can get more insights into your contact, their communication style, how they want to be communicated to, and you can really tailor that message to hit those touch points where they want to have that contact. and not waste their time. For example, when I write memos and emails, I'm a bullet point kind of guy. So if you're going to come in and talk to me, I want the bottom line, what is this going to do? What's the process? And it's just got to be bam, bam, bam. If you give me how we're going to make the watch versus what time is it, we're done.


Trygve Olsen:
I mean, I am, I am totally going to steal that because I've been really having trouble in this day and age saying, uh, do you want, do you want my sausage or do you want me to make the sausage for you? So the watch that's, that's so much better. I'm going to steal that. And now seven years from now, when we're on a podcast, I'll, I'll attribute it back to your time.


Tom Hoelderle:
Some prospects, you know, some prospects want to know how the watch is made. If you know that about that prospect, then you can have that kind of a conversation.


Dave Meyer:
Right. And this, this kind of brings us full circle. And I want to ask our two sales guests today, what best examples do you have of customers of yours, sales training customers of yours that have used CRM? Well, what are, what are some killer tips on how to get either adoption or to excel in sales using CRM? So just killer tips of any, of any stride. Tom, you want to go first?


Tom Hoelderle:
I would say as far as killer tips, the more automated it is, the better. Also, tracking at the different stages of where someone is in the process, tailoring your response and your second, third, fourth level outreach is key. And that's where CRM can help you gauge, you know, where are they? Are they just looking for information? Do they really have a problem? that they want solved more quickly. CRM is really critical in helping to understand and maintain that cadence in conjunction with your buyer's journey.


Professor Scott Plum:
I think a couple of things that a salesperson should be keeping track of and updating the CRM regularly is in the description for the overall record, keep track of the do's and don'ts. Try to uncover some of the criteria and making the overall decision. Keep track of the motivation as to what is causing them to make a change right now. Try to get an understanding of what value you offer from your company to their company. And that all works on decommoditizing your product or service and not selling on price. And I've heard salespeople complain all the time that our product is overpriced or our service is overpriced. And I said, have you ever gone into a company and you're five cents less or $5 less and they didn't buy from you? And they go, well, yeah. I go, well, why? Well, you know, because of this, I said, so what you're telling me is there was another reason that held them back from buying from you and you're telling me all they do is buy on price. It's not true. It's not a true statement. So in the description of the record, you keep track of those general information. In the activities that you have, the emails that you send, that you attach to the record, or the conversations that you have on the phone, you document that within your activities so that you're keeping track of moving the ball down the field and talking about what's changed, what's going to change, what's the next steps. And now you're really looking at creating that activity list, that call log, that you're gonna make happen. On Wednesday, when you pull the door open, walk in, throw your jacket over your chair, turn on your computer, and open up your CRM, it's like, okay, here we are. Oh, I remember this call. I'm looking forward to talking to them. So when you use the tool to work for you instead of the tool working against you, I think you're gonna find that you're gonna have better conversations, and overall, you're gonna have a greater impact on your customers and your prospects, and that all contributes to your reputation.


Trygve Olsen:
I think the one thing that Dave and I get tagged with all the time in dealing with the production people that we have in house is clients hear what they want to hear after the fact. And so if they're asking hypothetical questions during the sales process, it's things like, well, Scott, could you guys do this? And their answer is, yeah, we could in theory do that, but we need to talk about it. We need to scope it out. We need to plan it out. But what the client heard was, yes, I can do that. And so then four months down the road, they'll come back and say, well, Dave said you guys would do this. Well, no, Dave said once in theory, we could do it. And then we decided together that we were going to do these other 12 things and we can still do it. Dave didn't tell you we were going to do it. Dave said we could do it. Having that record keeping helps prove that point in a way that doesn't create friction. It doesn't create acrimony. It's not hyper aggressive where you're saying, no, Scott, you're wrong. The production people, the people behind us are going to be able to say, well, we look back through the records. Sounds like you and Dave talked about it in theory. you never really did anything with it. So we'd be happy to do it. Well, let's, let's figure out a scopes to it. And that's, I think the, the real value in the record keeping, not as in sale and not in the sales management, it's in the whole life cycle of the business that salespeople just have to be on the front end of.


Professor Scott Plum:
I wouldn't say that they lied. I would call them an unfaithful historian. Creatively hurt. They don't remember the incident accurately. You're an unfaithful historian. I mean, there are a lot of things that are possible. Some of them are illegal. So that doesn't mean that we're going to do it. Let's talk about that when you get to a point of deciding whether you want to do it or not, and we can go from there. Then you're creating the need and the urgency on their end, and you're telling them that, hey, if this is something that you want to do, you have a conversation, let's figure, let's talk about that when you're ready to make a change. And now it's on them to follow through on it because you're kind of taking things away from them that they want, they've inquired about. And you didn't say no, but you're continuing to maintain that interest and curiosity of working together.


Trygve Olsen:
Great spot to end it. Tom, Scott, thank you so much for joining us. I don't know if we solved anything, but hopefully we helped people make decisions one way or the other. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having us. My pleasure. Thank you.