Using Your CRM

0:04 Thank you for joining us on the Winning and Selling Podcast. I'm Bill Hellkamp of REACH Development Systems, and with me is Professor Scott Plum of the Minnesota Sales Institute. How do you manage conversations for member your priorities and accurately forecast sales? All while juggling a packed calendar. You guessed it, your CRM. But most salespeople treat their CRM like a dumping ground instead of a behavior driving tool it should be.

0:31 So sharpen your stylist and clear your memory cache as Bill and I dive into using your CRM part two, managing conversations priorities and other perilous projections on episode 668 of the Winning and Selling Podcast. All right, well as we get started and I'm looking forward to the CRM like all of our listeners out there who love the CRM. Excited. Yeah, whenever we bring up the CRM everyone is excited about it and says, oh please more.

1:01 Is there more information I can put in there because my manager wants it? Like required continuing education credits. Yeah, you got to do it. I know I don't want to. Shoot myself in the foot. In from my own good. Well the problem is we don't do it for our own good and we think we're only doing it for the businesses good but then we lose track of stuff. Before we get in this we're in the book sales perspective. We're talking about CRM perspective but we're going to go to sales perspective by Jimmy Z.

1:29 We're talking about chapters three and four. Now chapter three he calls closed the gap and what he's talking about here is his big issues is that he sees salespeople are trying to solve problems by guessing and that and we see that all the time that we've got with the good talkers. The good talkers. This guy's going to be good in sales because they're a good talker and because they're a good talker they go into a sales situation and they say let me tell you what I got.

1:56 The first couple chapters Jimmy gave an example where he went in and he told them what he got and he actually got a sale. Right yes. He thought hell this is a way to sell. It's pretty easy. I'll go into another one and I'll tell them what I got and they didn't buy anything. He calls that the gap. General accounting practices right? No generally assumed problem. Oh okay there's a difference. That means that salespeople are assuming a problem when they walk in.

2:27 So he discusses an issue where salespeople assume they know what the customer's problem in and they start going in and telling them stuff without asking anything. They skip discovery and you know how I love discovery. I'm a big discovery guy but it really falls into your problem Scott that you talk about helping and you say don't assume there's a problem because they may not feel they need to be helped and you look at even dumber.

2:51 Right. Right. You assume a problem. This is an important part of an opening of a sales conversation and I always like to plan a seat of opportunities to work together to take advantage of a service that I provide but in presenting the service that I provide I also need to say I don't want to assume that you have any problems in that area or that you even need my help. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions. Now we're eliminating that assumption context and then we're starting to ask questions which supports your step of the sales process.

3:19 Do you like which is the discovery asking questions learning more information. You know one thing you said in there I think it's really interesting and this kind of little off topic but you and I have sold together a lot and listeners that's exactly how he starts every interview and you know what the customer does not say how Scott you said that same thing with that other. Right. We get sick of saying the right thing because we're doing it all the time.

3:47 The prospect doesn't get sick of us starting things in a particular way because this is the first time they've heard it. And so don't get sick of doing things right because you've done them for every appointment. Oh I always ask this question about whether they have a problem and I don't have a problem. That's kind of no that's a great way to open continue to do that because you only do that one time with that particular customer.

4:12 So I see people tell me that and I don't want to get scripted. You better get scripted. You suck at what your script is. Whatever you're talking about it has nothing to do with it. So follow Scott's advice clear that assumption out of the way of saying I don't I'm not assuming you have a problem and then you can move forward and start asking questions and I like that you ask what I call the permission question. Okay if I ask you some questions.

4:38 Anyway all right so Jimmy goes into the details of this thing I'll tell you what I get confused. Scott liked this chapter a little bit more than I did so I'm going to let him carry a ball. But he likes to talk about both B2C and B2B4C and which I would call channel selling. So I work with a lot of clients that sell to distributors who then sell to the end user or the consumer. So that's what he calls B2B4C. So he's that B2B guy and he's helping them sell their product.

5:15 We call that channel selling. Trouble is he bounces back and forth and I never know which won't conversation he's in on this. So Scott I'm going to let you carry this a little bit because you found this more applicable. I love this concept because there's a lot of things that the prospect has already purchased from your company as a salesperson of all the services you provide. But we really need to be able to sell that gap.

5:38 Sell into the areas that they don't know about or the impact that they're missing if they don't buy a product or service or the desired outcome that they want. That they may have a tough time communicating to you because they don't know what the future looks like without your solution. So sometimes filling the gap is uncovering a challenge or a problem that's existing and then when you're addressing that with your solution you're starting to fill in that gap based on some of the differences that maybe they have from the current provider and some things they can look forward and they make a purchase from you.

6:08 So that's how I see the gap being filled. Sometimes I never understand what Scott says. But that's okay. It's another show twice too. Don't really understand what I see. I think he's saying is don't assume that you know what the thing is until you have that conversation. Exactly. That B2B4C is a very different conversation, Scott. I am not going in there necessary to that B2B4C situation if I'm the product supplier and saying let me tell you about my product.

6:40 What you're going in there and this is what Jimmy says is how can I help you to sell more? How can I help you to do better business with your, how can I help you with your big sales to your clients? And he gives examples where he went in and became a third party seller to that end user for that B2B company. So it's just when he bounces back and forth I get a little confused because they are such different conversations.

7:05 Let's move on to chapter four. Stop trying to close the sale is a title of this. And I think the overall messages of this chapter is we're thinking about closing and we're not thinking about opening. And what we need to do is think about opening the sale. We need to think about our discovery and if we ask better discovery questions we're going to get better answers. If we ask vague questions we get nebulous answers. So improve your questioning to get better precise questions to give you more precise and useful answers.

7:41 So I really agree with Jimmy on this point. We've talked about it a thousand times. If you're not sitting down and trying to think through and develop eight to ten questions before your appointment you are wasting a lot of time. And so you really need to have to deal with that. Now I think the title is to not try to close the sale. So let's talk about that a little bit. And that is Jimmy's contention that when we get our self-focused on closing we hurt ourselves in the eyes of that end user, that customer.

8:12 And that we start to appear greedy. We start to appear self-serving. And we lose that what he's going to call the perspective and that is the perspective from the customer's standpoint. So what do you think on that Scott? Are we looking to greedy? Are we thinking about closing? Should we spook it all of our goals? I'm really reminded about something that Jimmy shared when we had him on the show a couple episodes ago and he said that he wants to be an assistant buyer.

8:41 And when he gets on the same side of the table as the buyer or the customer that he's selling to he's looking at the challenge. Here's the goal, the desired outcome from the perspective of the buyer. And then together they're looking at obstacles or challenges that are going to prevent them from getting what they want. And when he starts to sense, I think that they're starting to go in the right direction. He starts supporting them and saying, you know, that sounds like a great idea.

9:02 I don't see any reason why that wouldn't work. And he started to emphasize it with more positive things than to try to overcome objections or challenges. Now, Jimmy talks in this about goal setting. And we have too many set goals set around sales. And when we get all these goals set around sales, then it makes us look desperate in front of the buyer. What do you think about that? Do you think that's true? That's the lagging outcome is the sales.

9:30 The leading goal that we should really be focusing on is the front end of the funnel, the opening end of the funnel and the beginning of the sales process and the leading activities that give us the desired outcome with the lagging results. And I think that's the concept that he's trying to introduce here. Yeah. And if we all we focus on is the sale, then I think we try to close it too early. I think we try to get them to make a decision before they're ready to decide.

9:59 And then we have buyers remorse. If we make the sale or they say, I'm going to think about it. So I agree with them. And let's focus on how many appointments am I going to have? How many proposals am I going to write instead of thinking how many sales am I going to close? The leading indicators that you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. So focus on those sales managers. How many appointments are they making if they're not making appointments, then they're certainly not going to get 80 to 90% close rate.

10:27 And so be careful on what you're talking about there. So I like this book. Jimmy's a good writer. He's got a nice flow to it. It's not, you know, it's not easy to put down. It's easy to read. So if you haven't bought the book yet, sales perspective by Jimmy Zuggewart, go out and get it at Amazon next week or actually not next week, next week we have a guest in two weeks, two episodes. We're going to work on chapter five.

10:49 So you have some time in between to go out and pick up the book. I'm looking forward to that. So today our topic is using your CRM part two, managing conversations, priorities and projections. Your CRM just isn't a digital filing cabinet. It's your time compass, your conversation ledger and your revenue dashboard. And used with discipline, it becomes strategic and it shortens your sales cycle, boost your close rate and managing your day with confidence.

11:19 Because at the end of the day, sales success isn't just about effort. It's about the right direction, control and commitment. And if you want to kind of look at a previous episode on this topic, episode 6, 6, 0, I talked about why I entered into the CRM. And as I talked more about this topic with some of our clients and prospects and some of the emails that I received, there was some interest and I needed to be able to work on developing the application and managing the activities a little bit deeper than more of a high level reputation management concept.

11:54 So I want to share seven things to do with managing your time using your CRM and proving those conversations and strengthening the sales results. So number one is. Well, look, before you go into that before you go. I roll in. You're rolling. I roll in. But you said it's not a digital filing cabinet, but I think for many people, if you don't keep on it, it's a digital garbage can. It's where good information goes to die because you don't put it in the right spot.

12:20 You don't put it in properly. And that's what Scott's going to talk about. Make it not a digital garbage can, but a tool that's going to be useful, useful for you when you need to get to back to that customer, which I don't know how many sales we lose because we don't get back to somebody. I'm probably guilty of the digital trash can because I use Outlook a lot in my daily behavior and I have folders that I store emails in.

12:46 And that's a trash can. That's a storage bin. That's right. And I never look in the storage bin because it is a trash can. But that's what you're talking about is that what is your habit? Is your habit to go to the CRM and start your day? Or is it to go someplace else? It has to be conceptual first. We need to believe that the CRM is the tool to manage our time effectively and efficiently. And if we don't believe that, we're not going to practice the behavior and make it a habit of putting everything into the CRM and looking into the CRM for answers.

13:19 And this is struggle for me too. But I know when I was really successful in sales, the CRM was the reason that I got the outcomes and the results that I wanted. And I'm going to go through seven of them, Bill. I want you to weigh in on them. So I'm going to pause and get your input on them. He says he's going to pause, folks. I know sometimes. We know. Number one. All right. I organized daily activity with an ABC tagging.

13:44 This goes back to, and I talked a little bit about this on the first day I got my Franklin Planner. And this is kind of the essence of the prioritizing the ABC priority levels. And when you look at the activities that you have and you rank them on priorities, ABCD or even E, cross it off the list or delegate to somebody else, we need to have the belief that not all activities are ranked and prioritized the same. There are more, there are some that are more important than others and not all prospects are ranked equally.

14:16 And the challenge if we don't do that, Scott, is we end up doing the EZCs first. Right. And we never get a feeling of accomplishment. We really need to eat that frog. Right. Right. And I think I've said this before. If not, it's something that you've certainly taught me. And that is when we have a sense of urgency, we act with a sense of urgency and hopefully that is contagious to the prospect with acting, acting with a sense of urgency.

14:46 So when we act like it's important, then they act like it's important. If we don't act like it's important, they won't act like it's important. And guess what? They won't find the value in that and those conversations are going to be long, shallow and unfulfilling because you're not going to get what you want, but you clog your pipeline with unqualified leads because you haven't created that urgency and you haven't focused on what the prospect wants the most when they make a decision to buy from us.

15:12 So number one is prioritizing your daily activities. Number two is tracked and segment your conversation. So log every conversation. It's time stamped within the CRM. Use custom fields to be able to enter information that you want to keep track of. I put one in there for LinkedIn. So I use Salesforce and I have a field in there for LinkedIn and I'm able to paste the LinkedIn link to their profile in there and I don't have to look them up on LinkedIn.

15:40 I go to the profile, I click here, it comes up, I get to see it, I see any changes that come up and I'm able to be able to keep track of this particular prospect by using customized fields. But think about what is the priority that we have when we're tailoring our efforts within a CRM is to be able to determine is this a qualified prospect? What are their priorities? What priorities are we using and how do we track and segment those conversations and prioritize them to be able to talk about, talk with who's closest to the goal line, who's making the commitment and following up to the next step shows commitment creates that urgency and that's what you're

16:20 really communicating is that value and that importance of that urgency. I am always surprised at how little I remember from an appointment. When I've had three appointments in an afternoon and talking about the same kind of things, how I can confuse A for B, I think it's so important after you have that meeting and I'm a lousy typist. Almost everything now has voice recognition on it. Just talk about your appointment into your phone, whatever, make a note that you can then attach to the appointment conversation.

16:55 When you go back to have that second appointment, I know you and I were just talking yesterday, Scott, we're going to meet with somebody and I said, what did we say we were going to do? Good thing, Scott, remember because I didn't make the note for that. You're really wasting opportunities. It's so much work to get an appointment, find a prospect, you prepare, you have that conversation and then you're not going to make some notes on it.

17:18 Attach that, come on. Think about how important is that second appointment. If you had a first appointment, you had a good conversation. At the time you scheduled a future appointment, maybe seven to ten days and then it comes time where it's the day of that appointment. This is a really critical time for that prospect to say we had a first appointment and now we're having a second one. We talked about some ideas, let's see what we came up after we talked and then once we have that second appointment, it's pretty close to whether or not we get to work with them or not.

17:50 The chances are we made some promises. Yeah, right. The chances are we made some promises of things we were going to bring back to that second appointment or conversations we were going to have. You can't wait till the morning of. You might not have time to do the things you promised you were going to do. Day after. That's why you make the notes. It really reminds you of what you were going to do. I've worked in a complex sale.

18:13 I send a letter of understanding. Basically, I say, here's what we talked about. Here's what I promised. You promised, let's get those things done before we meet in a week. Right. And that's tracking the conversation and making the importance of that second meeting absolutely critical on getting a commitment from them. I think sometimes that second meeting is really a question that as salespeople we need to think of and maybe even have the guts to ask our prospect.

18:42 Before we begin on some of the details of how we prepared for today's meeting, let me just ask you a question. Do you want to work together? I mean, have we made in a commitment to work together first and then determine how we work together? And I was listening to one of our previous episodes on the negotiation and the sales strategies. And what a charged episode that you and I had on negotiation because it's something that creates a little bit of friction.

19:10 And when we really start to work together on prioritizing what's important for each other, it's not their way, it's not our way, it's a better way. And now we get a customized proposal that they love to buy and they really see themselves in that proposal. So I think that that's really important when it comes to tracking. Excellent. Yeah. Number three is the document objections to spot patterns. I think there are some common objections.

19:34 Maybe it's related to the product, the industry, the changes within the marketplace. But sometimes I think salespeople create their own objections. And when you start to track the objections that you're getting, is it something that you're saying, something in your presentation or part of your subconscious routine? Or are you just winging it when you go in and you think it's funny and it's not? That's an objection that maybe you want to keep track of as to why am I stalling out at certain conversations related to certain topics?

20:01 You may be creating your own objection. Yeah, I see this. I was working with a company just a couple of days ago and they were leaving, they were doing outbound calls and they were leaving messages. And part of the message that the person was saying, and what I want to talk to you about is pricing and timing and the process. The first thing he mentioned was pricing. And I said, you're making pricing the conversation because that's what you're saying first.

20:26 So there's a way and they are not a price-sensitive company. They're equality-sensitive companies. So he should have been saying, what I want to talk to you about is your needs and your issues and how we can help you more effectively. But they're not even thinking, they're thinking about pricing, timing, whatever. And then I think the other thing that I see just a real quick thing on this is if you keep getting the same objection, change your sales process.

20:52 Exactly. You're creating something. If you don't have an answer for that objection, you're full. If you keep getting the same objection, you're still a fool because you better look back and see what you're doing that's causing that objection to happen like the example that I just gave. Exactly, exactly. Bill. Moving on to number four is qualify with consistency using the five criteria. So I talked about qualifying earlier and here's the five questions that really think about asking and include the information in the CRM.

21:21 So number one is, is there a clear need? Is it a qualified prospect? Do they have a need or are you just shared ideas with them and there's not a problem, the stick to when it comes to the solutions? The second one is, are they willing to pay? Do they have a budget? Can they find the budget? Are you going to be able to create this to be a need where they need to find a budget or are you going to create a conversation where they want it and later on they're going to find out the way to pay for it?

21:47 Can you deliver it? Is there a supply chain issue? Is there a labor issue? Is there a talent issue where you may or may not be able to deliver? Is there urgency? Are they asking you questions to talk about implementation and execution or is that not a topic they even bring up? They're telling you that it's not urgent. And then ask yourself, is the deal profitable? Though you've talked more and more times about taking that 5% discount or 10% discount and we know it comes right off the bottom line of the profit, right?

22:17 Absolutely. Anytime we cut our price without changing the whole deal, the profitability is the only thing that is lost. So I like these five areas, especially when you're talking about money. We avoid that. You've talked about that before. You've got to start talking about money early. Otherwise you're going to get caught. They're going to think it costs 5,000. You're going to try and charge them 30 and you can't bridge that gap anymore.

22:43 Yeah. And here's how some of these points end up tying themselves together is based on this particular section, 0.4, we start to be able to cross-reference the ranking of the prospect is what we talked about earlier and part one of the topic. So as we start to qualify and we're starting to put the stuff into the CRM, we're then able to start to rank our prospects. And is this a good time to ask for a furl? The answer is always yes, it's a good time to ask for a furl.

23:12 There's never a bad time to ask for a furl. So I'm going to pepper that in there periodically. Jumping on to number five is use email summaries as CRM notes. So every follow up email you send confirming the meeting should be logged in that CRM and reinforces the clarity and reduces the misconceptions and the misunderstandings to help sales managers kind of monitor the pipeline integrity and for sales people to defend their position.

23:38 How many times has a sales person sold something to a prospect that prospect comes back and says, we didn't know that wasn't included. You mentioned it to us before, but for one reason another prospect picked a different option where that particular topic was not included. It's not documented in the CRM in one way or another. And now the prospect can say, I thought that was included. You didn't tell me that that wasn't included.

23:58 Be careful of throwing something in that you're not generating your revenue from the prospect is not paying for it monetarily, but it is adding more value. So sometimes that's not always bad, but you don't want to be coming from a position of not including something when the customer prospect is expecting it. Yeah, this email summary is a great place to use that idea of a letter of understanding, which is where you say, here's what we talked about.

24:24 Here's what we agreed to. Here's what I'm going to bring. Here's what you promised to get to me before that. And you say at the end, if any of this is wrong, let me know. And now it's their responsibility to say, oh, I thought this was included. So each step of the process, you can summarize what's going on. And then as Scott says, drop that into your CRM notes. And consider using some of your AI tools. I know there's people that record conversations.

24:53 They ask it to do a summary of the conversation. They ask it to do an email recap of it. And now you've got it all written. And it's clear. Like Bill said, sometimes we don't remember the first meeting. So it makes it a tough time having an effective second meeting. But when you do this summary, it makes it a lot easier to keep track of what was talked about. Number six is benchmark proposal effectiveness. So one of the goals we want to have is shorten that sales cycle.

25:19 We want to reduce the timeline. How do we do that? How do we manage a win loss ratio? What's the average sale that we end up making? We're able to use the CRM to help build that persuasive proposal to match the buyer's motivation and then to keep track of it so that we can improve it. If we don't measure it, we can't manage it. And that's one of the things we talked about in the previous episode of 6, 6, 0 podcast. So this is a good idea.

25:45 Keeping track of your proposal effectiveness. Yep. Not your quote effectiveness, by the way. Right. Yeah. Not a quote, a proposal. What's the situation? How are you going to solve it? Then you put in the quote. And the difference between the two is a quote is generally a monetized section of a proposal, which is a comprehensive solution, including a summary of the situation that you want to solve with the solution that you offer.

26:12 And that is the foundation and the skeleton of a proposal. And the last point is you'll drive CRM adoption through the courtesy piles. I mentioned that when we're camping and before we leave, we put a stack of wood next to the fireplace. So whoever comes in next is able to start a fire quickly. And sometimes territories change. Sometimes we need to delegate tasks. And sometimes people come in and replace our positions because we get promoted in advanced or we get promoted out.

26:41 And somebody else takes our territory. And this is sort of a unselfish commitment to the territory, our customers, our prospects that we care about, that we want to make sure that they're served in the event that we're no longer with the company or we're no longer in this role or we don't have this territory. So enter stuff into the CRM to make it easier for somebody else to be able to pick up the conversation. And this is really having that compassionate commitment to your customers and your territory and how you want to serve them.

27:09 Yeah, whether you get let go or whether you get promoted, that customer relied on you. And CRM is a great way to leave that information. Whoever's going to take that over. I think if you're thinking of it selfishly and you're saying, well, you know, if I get fired, blah, blah, blah, are you thinking you're going to get fired? What are you doing that's causing you to think that way? Yeah. I would be not doing. So if that's your reasoning for not doing your CRM, be careful what kind of service you're actually giving.

27:37 And there's some misconception in skepticism in this area that think that if salespeople are entering stuff into the CRM, their manager is always looking at it and peeking over their shoulder and managing and what do they call it? Micro managing? No, they're proactively managing and they are working on maintaining the integrity of the conversations that the salespeople have with the prospects and what they're entering into the CRM in order to have better conversations in the future.

28:01 And the sales managers are going to peek at that going, how is Jimmy doing on this particular prospect entering that informational bill to share the leader of the company in the sales department? How Jimmy is doing in that area? Any misconceptions, Bill, that you've heard from people when it comes to CRMs and why they don't want to use them? Because I think that's the biggest objection. That's why I think that these two episodes are really important as to how do we use a CRM to be better effective and more efficient in our conversations with prospects.

28:29 I think the biggest thing that I've seen is that people think it's for management and not for them. And that's because they're not using it well. They're just trying to remember everything and have crap notes all over their desk. Every Riddimos says notes, put them into the CRM, start to manage your business like a professional business. Yeah, yeah. I totally agree. And I think the more that we can change our mindset and the more we can improve our behavior, the greater results that we're going to get when we end up applying all those.

28:58 All right, great topic, Scott. Thank you. We'll look forward to more topics next week. But before we do that, our golden nugget is from Walt Disney. And I think this is where Mike Tyson heard his. You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you. I Walt Disney. And he lost the license to his first cartoon. Thought he owned it and had to make up Mickey Mouse as a result of it.

29:22 So that kick in the teeth was quite a world changer for him. And then Mike Tyson said, everybody has a plan to get punched in the face. So I think he was reading Walt Disney when he came up with that. I've heard that Mike Tyson quote three times from two different people. So Scott, what do we got going on? Finish it up. Everything we talked about is going to be at winning at selling.com. You may have to put the www in front of that.

29:47 So look for it there. Next week we have a guest, Jenny Nemelos. She's going to talk about integrating change management into sales. She's a change management expert. I think that'll be really interesting. And then keep up on your reading. In two weeks, we'll do Jimmy Sales perspective by Jimmy Z, chapter five. Please subscribe. The podcast with your colleagues and on your social media. This is episode six, 68. Go out and get better.

30:12 One skill at a time. Joyful selling.