August 2, 2025 • 39 mins
Episode 124 Driving Sales Excellence: John Golden on CRM Intelligence and Customer Engagement Frederick Dudek (Freddy D) Copyright 2025 Prosperous Ventures, LLC
Freddie D here, and today we're diving deep into the world of sales with John Golden, a heavyweight in the game. One of the key points we hit on is how Pipeliner CRM flips the traditional sales script by empowering salespeople instead of burdening them with data entry. John's got an impressive track record, having led companies like Huthwaite and even penned bestsellers on sales strategy. During our chat, we explored how the right CRM can transform not just sales processes but also foster long-term relationships with customers, turning them into superfans. So, if you're looking to elevate your sales game and understand the human side of business, this conversation is packed with insights you won't want to miss.
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In our conversation, John Golden emphasizes the evolution of sales processes and how technology can significantly improve efficiency. He shares his experience with Pipeliner CRM, which was designed with a sales-first mindset. Unlike traditional CRMs that often serve management’s needs at the expense of sales reps, Pipeliner focuses on empowering salespeople by providing them with the tools they need to succeed.
John discusses how CRMs should not only collect data but also enhance the sales process by integrating AI and automation to reduce the mundane workload of reps. We also explore the art of relationship-building in sales, highlighting that successful selling is about engaging customers and understanding their needs. John’s insights on turning customers into raving fans through genuine connections and support are invaluable for any sales professional looking to thrive in today’s competitive landscape.
Takeaways:
- John Golden emphasizes the importance of empowering salespeople by providing them with the same tools as management, which can significantly enhance their performance and productivity.
- In the podcast, John shares how Pipeliner CRM was designed with a salesperson-first perspective, aiming to reduce the burden of data entry and instead provide valuable insights.
- The episode discusses the crucial role of a well-defined sales process in achieving predictable revenue, highlighting that flexibility and adaptation are key in a dynamic market.
- John explains how integrating AI and automation into CRM solutions can help salespeople focus on building relationships rather than getting bogged down by repetitive tasks and data management.
- The conversation highlights the value of listening to customers and adapting products based on their feedback, which is essential for creating customer loyalty and turning them into superfans.
- Freddie and John discuss how understanding the business context of prospective customers can lead to more meaningful conversations and ultimately drive sales success effectively.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(03:11):
Hey, Superfans superstarFreddie D. Here in this episode 124,
we're joined by John Golden, aglobally recognized sales and marketing
thought leader, strategist andspeaker. With over 1500 interviews
under his belt for sales pop,a top 2% podcast worldwide, John
(03:33):
has become a powerful voice ina world of sales leadership and innovation.
He brings a wealth ofexperience as the former CEO of Hootwaite
and Omega Performance and nowserves as chief strategy and Marketing
officer at pipeliner CRM. He'salso the best selling author of Winning
(03:56):
the Battle for Sales andSocial Upheaval. And when he's not
transforming sales strategies,he's honing his skills as a dedicated
martial artist and a seeker ofwisdom. Get ready for a conversation
packed with insight, energyand actionable takeaways.
Welcome, John, to the BusinessSuperfans podcast. We're super excited
(04:17):
to have you here.
Yeah, I'm super, super excitedto be here.
So let's go backwards in timeand what's your background? Give
us the scoop.
Yeah. So. Well, it's a longand winding road as most of these
things are. I'm originallyIrish, as you can maybe tell, and
I came to the US during thedot com era. I came with a small
(04:39):
IR company that set up inSilicon Valley. I moved over here
and then over time progressedthrough my career, but I ended up
running a couple ofbusinesses. One was Huthwaite Spin
Selling, which was NeilRackham's bestselling sales book
based on the only scientificresearch ever done on sales. It was
(04:59):
owned by a. There was a parentcompany. It owned like 40, 50 businesses
in Forma, and I was CEO of twoof the businesses. They gave you
businesses and said, here'swhat we expect from this business
in terms of profit margin andyou go and run it like it's your
own. So you basically gothanded a business to run, which was
fantastic. I did that for fiveor six years. And Hathaway was sale,
(05:23):
obviously Spin Selling, sales.So we did, we did sales consulting
with organizations large andsmall across the globe. Performance
improvement. Eventually Ihelped the parent company sell some
of those businesses to aprivate equity group, you know, including
Huthwaite and Omega beforePerformance. And then I, I decided
I want. My wife wanted to moveback to the west coast, so we moved
(05:46):
back to San Diego and Istarted my own management consultancy.
So I went out on my own andstarted gathering clients. And clients
came across Nicholas Kimler,the founder of pipeliner CRM. It's
an interesting story. He hadread the book that I wrote, Winning
the Battle for Sales. And hecontacted me because I had written
in it about CRM. I had said,you know, the worst words a salesperson
(06:09):
can hear is, we're getting anew CRM. Because you just think,
oh, no, this is going to bedisaster data entry. You're going
to have to learn all thissystem. I basically said, the good
times are over when the CRMcomes in. Winning the Battle for
Sales was about analogies ofbattles. It was David and Goliath,
actually, the analogy, becauseDavid was offered all the latest,
(06:30):
greatest armor and everything,and he put it all on. They couldn't
leave me Slingshot. And awaywent and won. So cut a long story
short, Nicholas said, I'mgoing to show you a CRM system and
I'll prove you wrong, right?And I said, knock yourself out. So
he showed me Pipeliner. Andone of the things that we had struggled
(06:51):
with was embedding salesmethodology into a CRM platform.
You couldn't do it withSalesforce, you couldn't do with
any of them a lot of work,customers, programming, all this
nonsense. Pipeliner was easilyable to do that right out of the
gate. So I said, okay, okay,now I'm interested. And it was visual
and it was easy to understandhow to use. And so I did some consulting
(07:13):
work with Nicholas, did anumber of projects, and then eventually
he came and said, do you wantto just come on board, be my partner
and bring this to market andgive up building your management
consultancy? So I said, okay.He was very persuasive, and I thought
this was an interestingopportunity to get back into kind
of technology, but alsocombined with my experiences with
(07:35):
sales and marketing, etc. Sothat's kind of the story of how I
arrived here.
Wow. Before we startedrecording, I mentioned to you that
back in 1986, I wrote my ownCRM using a relational database on
a Mac called Helix. And it wasjust very rudimentary, basic. I could
just track who I talked to andeverything else. I had a Mac and
(07:56):
I had a, you know, kind oflike the backpack thing. And I would
walk into manufacturingcompanies and they'd be like, what?
And I'd whip out my Mac and Ihad an Excel and I had an roi. And
we would sit down and puttogether all the information. And
that was one of my salestactics, was that I didn't have all
the AI tools and all theautomation, but I would emotionally
(08:18):
connect you to doing itbecause we would be sitting together
and putting your ROI and youwould be providing all the numbers.
So it was really Your roi, youowned it. And then you could go to
executive management and says,hey, if we invest in this CAD system,
here's what it's going to do.And I didn't have to be there because
(08:38):
I created you as my internalsalesperson because I emotionally
connected you to it. So. Andyeah, I've been using CRMs since
then. So I'm very interestedin learning more about cross. What
differentiates Pipeliner, CRM?
Yeah, well, one of thefundamental things, this is what
attracted me to it in thefirst place, Freddie, was that all
(09:02):
of the CRM systems weretesting and you know, especially
the big ones, they originallyhad been built from a command and
control perspective. They'dbeen built for how do sales leaders
and executives get all thedata they need? And the burden then
had been placed on thesalespeople to that data and the
sale. And the salespeople werenot seeing any value in the CRM system.
(09:25):
They were seeing it more as aburden. And you know, back in the
day, when we're using otherCRM systems, if I had a dollar for
every time a salesperson saidto me, well, do you want me to fill
in the data on the CRM or doyou want me to sell? Ideally, I'd
like you to do both.
I remember those conversations.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Sowhat attracted me to Pipeliner was
(09:48):
Nicholas. We had built it andthe concept was from the salesperson
first perspective, asbasically our philosophy is if the
salesperson is getting valueout of it, they're the main getting
the value out of it. It'shelping them, is giving them insights,
then they're working in thesystem, then the data is in the system
and then management aregetting exactly what they need. And
(10:11):
the other thing too is we alsolook at salespeople as entrepreneurs
in an organization. They'repretty much the only in a company
that has variable incomethat's not guaranteed because let's
face it, most bonus plansother people have are pretty much
guaranteed. But variableincome, they may even be full commission.
So they have to be creative.They live in a world of uncertainty.
(10:36):
Nothing is predictable forthem. So we wanted to give them all
the tools to manage their ownbusiness. So we actually give them
all the same tools as themanagement would have. Obviously
different view of access todata, but very much all built around
empowering the salesperson andbringing value to the salesperson
and as a result delivering onthe promise of CRM for management.
(10:59):
And the other part that hasbeen really. You talked about AI
and automation as well. Wehave really focused on Bringing automation
and AI into the system so thatwe can take the burden off of the
salesperson, not replace them.Automate routine, repetitive tasks,
get data automatically intothe system, use AI to help prepare,
(11:22):
whether it's analyzing email,but allowing the salesperson to be
the most prepared they can be.And then focus on what salespeople
really want to do, as youknow, Fred, is they want to be creative,
they want to buildrelationships, they want to use their
human skills to the max. Andso now we're at a point, I believe,
where a system like ours withthe AI built in with the automation
(11:46):
is. Now you're starting toreally get to that point where the
CRM system is setting you upfor success as a salesperson and
allowing, rather than being aburden, it's now being a benefit
to you.
No, I can completely relate.In the late 80s and early 90s, I
was using a CRM, another CRMthat I had bought off the shelf.
(12:09):
And I used it in conjunctionwith the daytimer. And so I would
print out all the stuff intothe daytimer that I had put into
the CRM. Because when I'd beat a prospective customer or an existing
customers, I wasn't theresitting there typing into the Mac.
I was basically writing itinto my daytimer. But that came into
(12:30):
play because then I couldbasically show all the prospective
customers, this is a list ofmy customers right off the datetimer.
But then I would leverage. Iwas ahead of my game because the
company wasn't even using aCRM. I was using it by myself. I
created template letter withina CRM. And so when we would do a
whole presentation, the way Iwould blow away the competition was
(12:53):
I would send out a thank youletter to everybody that participated
in the presentation. And soyou were in a shop floor running
the milling machine or thelathe or the wider EDM in the manufacturing
space. Nobody ever recognizesyou. I did. It was a boilerplate
letter, but you still got itin the old school mail because there
was no email back then. Butthat won me more sales because of
(13:19):
the fact that everybody feltthat after the sale we would provide
the best follow up support. SoI want to really emphasize that because
the CRM is a tool, but you'vegot to still, as you mentioned, from
the people perspective, yougot to still engage with people and
you got to build thoserelationship and you got to turn
(13:39):
those relationships into super fans.
Yeah, no, a hundred percent.And that's why one of the deliberate
decisions that we made wasthat while we're a technology company,
we still want to have a humanfirst. If you have support issue
or anything like that, youengage with the human. And we don't
look at support tickets astickets, right? Like, because most
(14:03):
people say, oh, the supportticket, close that as fast as possible,
sort that out and close it.Right. We look at when somebody interacts
with us from a supportperspective, we look at that as an
opportunity not just to solvethe issue at hand, but also to educate,
to understand, to engage indeep conversations. Use that opportunity
to have a conversation withthe customer and see if not only
(14:25):
do you can you fix theproblem, but you can maybe advise
on other ways of doing things,maybe talk to them about maybe here's
a feature you're not using atthe moment, here's what it could
do for you. So we have ourconcept, we call it the wingman.
That support is here as yourwingman. It's there to help you.
We're not interested in justclosing a ticket and moving on. We
actually like it when peoplereach out to us. We're like, cool,
(14:46):
now we've got somebody to talkto. Our system is great, but consistently
we get rave reviews for thecustomer service, for the help when
setting up, for theonboarding, all of that. So at the
end of the day, I totallyagree with you, Freddie. You're not
going to create super fansunless you focus on connecting humanly,
(15:09):
on understanding them, onthem, feeling like you really want
to help them and want tounderstand what they're trying to
achieve. That's how you turnpeople into profound superfans. And
it has to be intentional,right? It has to be a deliberate
decision that you're making.And so like we did as a technology
company, we said, no, we wantto be product and people. That's
(15:31):
how we want to be known. Wewant people to say, fantastic product,
fantastic people workingsymbiotically together.
Well, I'm glad you broughtthat up, John, because the reality
is us being in sales forGates, the signing of the deal isn't
the sale, that's just thepaperwork. The sale is everything
that happens after thetransaction. The onboarding, like
(15:55):
you said, the way you workwith the customers, that's how you
create those superfans. Andmore importantly, if you look at
how you can assist them toreach their business goals now, you
become an asset to thembecause it's not just about technology,
just like you just mentioned.Hey, did you know this new feature,
this functionality, this couldsave you X amount of time and help
(16:19):
you be more productive, etcetera. They don't know. So the fact
that you guys got that, that'sa differentiator, and that's how
you guys are creating superfans of your customers and you're
scaling as quickly as you guys are.
Yeah, no, absolutely. And Ithink you have to have that collaborative
mindset. Some of our largercustomers, they'll come to us and
(16:39):
they'll say, here's somethingthat we need to do. One of our big
customers wanted forms thatthey could use online forms in the
system. At the time, we didn'thave online forms. We went, okay,
this is not just something forthem. This is something that all
our customers could use. So wewent out and we basically created
embedded into the system anonline form functionality, which
(17:02):
is actually as good asSurveyMonkey, things that you could
use. But again, that wascollaborating with the customer,
saying, okay, and then going,wow, this is something that other
customers could benefit from.So not only have you developed something
for that customer and thatobviously you become a partner with
them because you're helpingthem solve their problems even with
(17:23):
something that you didn't havein the first place, but you were
prepared to actually createfor them. And then they are actually
becoming your evangelist toyour other customer base. And look
at how we use this. They useonline forms or other features to
do various tasks within theirbusiness, and then that helps other
customers go, oh, I could dothat too.
Well, it goes beyond that,because at the same time, what you're
(17:45):
showing your customer base isyou actually listen to them. Because
there's so many technologycompanies that invent stuff and create
stuff in a vacuum of what theythink people want versus what people
really want. And there's a bigdifference. And there's successful
software companies that reallyscale are in partnership with their
(18:08):
customers. They're getting thefeedback when the companies have
where customers vote onfeedback, features and functionality,
and then they actually deliverthe stuff that the people want. And
that's how you create momentumand that's how you hang on to that
customer base, because they'regoing, wow, my vendor listens to
me.
(18:30):
I mean, I think that's anextremely important point there,
because there was a time whena lot of companies were starting
to use technology to keepcustomers at an arm's length and
trying to leverage technologyto make technology work for you as
opposed to work for yourcustomers. And often, making life
easy for yourself internallyoften translates into making life
(18:54):
not very easy for purecustomers and. And prospects. So
I think you always have tokeep that peace in mind, and you
always have to look at what isthe true impact and the other thing
too. Cause as you said,sometimes unfortunately, developers
live in their own world andthey don't always understand the
end user.
Oh yeah, I remember in asoftware company, we were creating
(19:16):
construction managementsoftware and I was a GM there and
we asked some functionalityand the programmers came back and
I'm going like, I gotta gothrough 10 clicks to go and get this
thing done. He goes, yeah, butit works. I says, yeah, but I don't
have time to remember. I gottago this, this, this, this, that,
(19:36):
that says, you know, you gottastreamline that up. And they were
like a look on their faces,like, you know, it was funny. So
you're absolutely correct.That's why I just wanted to interject
that point.
And it makes complete sense.One of the things that I learned
early on about bringingproducts to market, Freddie, is that
the customers are going to usethe product in ways that you never
thought they would. They'regoing to have issues that you could
(19:58):
never anticipate. And so a lotof it has to do with then how agile
you are after the fact.
Yeah. So John, can you share astory of how you guys replaced the
platform that they'reutilizing and put in sales pipeline
and how did that transformthat business to where now they're
one of your biggest advocates?
(20:21):
Yeah, there's one. We workwith one of the top cruise lines
in the world, a very regalroyal one that does a lot of work
around the Caribbean. So thereyou can figure that one out. We actually
help them with. This is funny,we were saying about applications
that you don't think of withtheir wedding planning business.
And Pipeliner CRM now usestheir wedding planning business.
(20:43):
Apparently it's a whole growthindustry getting married on cruise
lines, but just not gettingmarried. Then you have anniversaries
coming up, you have all ofthat. So we've helped them build
this whole system where theyrun all of that. They can remind
people anniversaries later.Sure, you could probably even have
a divorce party some stage.But all of that and they're amazed.
(21:05):
Now they're raving fansbecause they're amazed about how
this has made this area oftheir and how it's helped them to
be able to start to reallyscale that business and to really
focus even more on a growtharea like that. And like I said,
it turned into raving fansbecause you wouldn't have said that
there was a natural fit.Right. You would have said, well
(21:26):
this is a slightly differenttype of sale. It could come from
a number of differentchannels. It's a Very relational
type thing. And then youthink, yeah, you can do all of those
things. If you think about it,process and systematize it, you can
take into account all of thoseelements at the end of the day. Let's
face it Freddie, everything inlife is a process, isn't it? And
I think that's the essence ofpipeline or CRM is that it forces
(21:49):
you into process thinking andinto defining and laying out your
process. And you can end up ina situation like this cruise company
has where now they have theirwhole weddings segment running really,
really smoothly and growing.
Yeah. So you've helped themcreate a whole new revenue stream
at the end of the day.
Yeah, absolutely. Maximize it.
(22:10):
Yeah. So you create a wholenew revenue stream for them in a
business that they canbasically keep really engaged with
their customers. So it's not aone time visit. They're maintaining
a long term relationship andpulling those people back in for
other adventures on the seas.
And the other people whoattend the weddings, there's an old
(22:31):
Irish saying that is going toa wedding is the making of another.
So yeah, those guys aredefinitely super fans of what you
guys have done because you'vecompletely expanded your business
model.
I think that's the key. No, Iwas just going to say I think that's
the key at the end of the day,Freddie, is to be open minded and
agile. But it comes fromreally trying to understand the business
(22:56):
in their business. And I thinkthat's a key part is if you're going
to be successful in sellingany SaaS product or any technology
product is you have to becurious about the business of your
prospect or customer. You haveto be curious about the business
of business in general. Ithink there, there once was a time,
let's be honest Freddie, whenthere were salespeople who really
(23:17):
didn't understand how businessworked. They were just all about
like the top line saleselling. Right. And, and I even worked
with one salesperson used tosay to me, John, I sell the sizzle,
not the steak. So he hadinteresting the details of what he
said. He just wanted to sellthe hype. I think those days are
largely behind us now and Ithink you have to be able to connect
(23:40):
on a business level. It has tobe a conversation between peers.
Right.
That's one of the things thatI used to do. That was one of my
techniques that I created andI really killed the competition.
That's why I got to the pointof being in charge of global sales.
I would go in there and say,okay, John, our product does this,
the guys down the street doesthis, the other guy's product does
(24:01):
this. So let's get that out ofthe way. There's three or four of
us in this space. We all cando the job. So John, what's your
real business objectives? Whatare your challenges in your business?
Let's talk about that. And howcan I help you get those goals? And
that would be theconversation. So I got out of the
widget conversation and I gotinto the business strategy conversation.
(24:25):
What's costing you money? Wereyou losing productivity? What if
you had a magic wand? Allthese conversations with the owners
of the shops and the tech guyswould look at the tech stuff, but
we were talking businessstrategy. So I was at a whole nother
level in the conversation. Andusually those sales were short sales
(24:46):
cycles because I talked aboutimpacting their business outcome
versus look how cool thiswidget is that you know, does this
and does that.
Yeah, no, absolutely. And Ithink that's the key. So my advice
to salespeople today is to beinsatiably curious about business
and the business of your, yourprospects and educate yourself. It's
(25:09):
so easy now. I mean, imagineonce a lot harder to do the research
now. Ever since the Internet,you've had the research. Now with
AI, you can actuallysynthesize all of that research and
really start to dig in andunderstand what's going on in an
industry and all of that. Sothere's no excuse really not to be
having business levelconversations because back.
(25:32):
Then I used to have to buy amanufacturer's directory tool and
die sic code was 3544. It'sburned into my brain. I'd buy them
for different states and I'dsay, okay, these are all the tool
and die shops. That's thepresident, that's the vice president
of engineering, that's vicepresident of manufacturing. That's
my target market. I got 300companies in this area, got to go
(25:52):
to work and that was it. Andthat was my research because there
was no Internet back then. Soyeah, there's no excuse really if
you don't take the time toreally leverage a technology that's
available. Like you justmentioned, you can really get a good
synopsis of what's going onwith that company, who the customers
are, what are theirchallenges. And you can come in there,
(26:15):
who educated and having aneducated conversation with that business.
Yeah, and one of the other,one of the other issues that we've
solving for salespeople isjust the one that we're referring
to now. Like the World haschanged so much. And if you think
about it, when you arecommunicating now with a prospect,
it could be phone, email,text, WhatsApp, it could be a bunch.
(26:36):
When you're involved in asales cycle with so much communication
across so many differentplatforms that it's really hard for
you to remember and understandand like, try and sort through all
of that. So we have used AI tohelp you. We have your feeds where
(26:56):
you can click on and off whichplatforms you want to see, but then
you can use AI to summarize,to gauge the sentiment. Look at all
of this correspondence andsay, okay, this is turning not so
good right now, so you mightwant to pay attention. So again,
what we're trying to do isunderstand the reality of salespeople
(27:16):
in the world that they live inand make it as easy as possible for
them to have the intelligentand informed conversations. And let's
face it, just going backthrough all of your emails and your
messages and trying toremember which is this and the thread
on that and whatever, beingable to have right there in front
of you is a huge, huge benefit.
Oh, absolutely. It'severything, really, because now you
(27:37):
can understand whereeverything is at and what's your
next play, how you shouldhandle it. One things I've coached
people on in sales is it'slike the dating situation. Sometimes
you go out on a date and thenit all went well and you reach out
to them and you don't hearfrom them two, three days, our mind
goes into the gutter and intonegative thinking. The reality is
(27:59):
they have a life, they're busydoing something else, they've got
a job or business to run andyou need to sometimes just be patient.
And that's bug them. Becauselike the dating, you start chasing,
they start running. So whatyou're doing is you're giving them
the data to say, okay, I needto sit back and let this run its
(28:20):
route. Based upon theinformation, I should check in two
weeks instead of three daysfrom now. And so now I've making
a much more intelligentdecision and I'm not chasing that
prospect. So, yeah, what youguys are doing is really simplifying
and giving the salesindividual the knowledge of how to
(28:43):
play the game.
Yeah, no, no, absolutely. Andthe other part too is, as you know,
Freddie's sales process is soimportant, but there's a lot of companies
today who either don't have aproperly defined sales process, or
maybe they have a roughlydesigned one here. They big initiative,
designed their sales process,rolled it out, and then thought,
(29:07):
thank goodness We've donethat, now we can move on. And you
go, well okay, that'd be greatif, if customers never change and
they never change their buyingbehavior, the world doesn't change,
you know, your products don'tchange, that'd be great. But unfortunately
we live in a.
It's dynamic.
Dynamic, yeah, it's crazydynamic now with what's happening
with AI, etc. So you have tobe always on top of things and moving
(29:31):
forward and, and that's whywith sales process is so key and
it really is. The bestperforming sales organizations in
the world have well definedsales processes. This is this research
from ZS Associates in McKinseyand stuff. Not just a well defined
process but one that isadhered to rigorously and enforced
(29:53):
and is also very defined at agranular level. So what I mean by
that is you can lay out yoursales process and pipeline. Let's
say you have five stages, sixstages, whatever it is for your particular
industry. But within each ofthose stages you can then define
actions that the seller has totake, actions that the buyer has
(30:15):
to take. And you can evenmandate that to the point where you
can't actually move from onestage to another unless you fulfill
these requirements. But thekey and what that does is that takes
out a lot of the subjectivitybecause how often have you seen this,
Freddie? I'm sure you have. Ihave an opportunity, you have an
opportunity. They're almostidentical. I have it in stage two,
(30:36):
you have it in stage three.Because my gut is it's a stage two.
Your gut is your one is astage three. And what does that do?
It knocks the forecast offbecause maybe you're overly optimistic
or maybe I'm a sandbagger, buteither way the forecast is skewed
because there's noconsistency. So having that consistency,
having everything in the rightplace in your sales process is so
(31:00):
important to predictablerevenue, to forecasting, to pipeline
management in general pipelinegrowth. So that's another thing that
we're very big on. We're inmany ways a process engine, but having
well defined and on a granularlevel and then looking at it as it's
(31:20):
a living breathing thing afterthat. It's something that you need
to analyze, you need to lookat and see how is it working, Are
things changing? Are customersthe way customers react, are bio
changing? So I need to makesome adjustments in it. But I think
that's one of the things thatoften is overlooked in sales is process
really is your friend.
Oh absolutely correct. Becausethat keeps you in check. That makes
(31:45):
sure that it's moving in anorganized fashion. You're not winging
it. Yeah, because the days ofwinging it are long gone, especially
with all the technology that'sout there today. It's also good feedback
because if the customer is notproviding the stuff on their end,
(32:06):
that gives you a gauge thatmaybe they're not so interested in
this thing. And I need tomaybe go circle back and find out
are they really looking tomove forward or is this just an exercise
that someone is curious tolearn about the technology, AKA wasting
your time and so you can findout because of those particular steps?
(32:29):
Yeah. One of my favoritelessons that we used to teach a lot
when we're healthway to teachsales organizations is the concept
of something actually moving,like an opportunity moving forward
and it stalled or no movement.Right. And you would say, okay, well
that should be easy toidentify, but it's not. Here's great
(32:50):
examples, right? Somebody,somebody comes back from a sales
call and you say, how did thecall go? Fantastic. You go, okay,
tell me about it. And theysay, yeah, well I presented this,
we had this conversation andyou go, okay, well what are the next
steps? Or is agreed to havelunch next week. You go, great, what's
he doing between now and nextweek? And he said, well, I don't
(33:13):
know, go well, what tasks haveyou set them? How can you gauge,
how is this opportunity movingforward between now and next week?
Because that's just acontinuation and that may be just
a free lunch for that personor a virtual one if you're selling
virtually these days. But ifyou can't point to anything that
they're doing, who else isinvolved in the buying decision?
(33:33):
And they say blah, blah, thisperson. Okay, could you have them
come to the call next week?Right now, something to do. So I
can now start to gauge reallyyour level of commitment or interest
in this. So I think that's oneof the ones that I still love. Is
it really moving forward or isthis just a continuation? Because
a continuation is not reallyforward momentum. It's just you're
(33:56):
in a holding pattern. If theprospect is not doing anything, they're
not actively engaged, thenit's a continuation and you're not
actually moving.
Oh, absolutely correct. I wasselling a company back in my early
sales stages, but fortunately,like I mentioned, I got some really
high end training. I wasselling engineering software. We
also had manufacturing, but Iwas dealing with the VP of engineering
(34:18):
and they were looking toupgrade. They were already existing
customer. And one of thethings I learned is you want to sell
wide. So I went through thewhole different departments. I got
to the CFO guy and talk tohim, and he goes, well, really, the
VP of engineering doesn't havea budget. The manufacturing people
have a budget and are lookingto upgrade their manufacturing technology.
(34:39):
I never would have thought ofthat. And he goes, the VP of manufacturing
plays golf with the owner ofthe company, so they're buddies.
So I switched my whole salestactics, started off and built the
relationship with themanufacturing guy. And that turned
out to be a $400,000 sale backin 1986. I got the plaque right up
(35:01):
on the wall for the top salesguy. But it was because of the fact
that I just did what you justsuggested. I went and found out what
was going on, who's involved,who are the players, and we called
them the sales training aswho's the fox in the company? And
that manufacturing guy was thefox because of the relationship he
had with the owner of thecompany. Had I never looked around
(35:24):
there, I would have been oneof those guys spinning my wheels,
trying to sell to theengineering guy. I had no budget,
no relationship, no nothing.Just had a. Had a want.
Yeah, yeah, or yeah, I wantfor maybe a free lunch every month
or so.
So as we kind of get closer tothe end here, John, how can people
find you?
Yeah, so you can find me onLinkedIn very easily, John Golden.
(35:48):
You can find Pipeliner CRM.Pipelinersales.com is the website.
You can find salespop.net onour SalesPop YouTube channel, which
is our give back educationalplatform where we just like you do,
we interview people and bringdifferent perspectives on sales,
marketing, leadership,motivation, et cetera. So you can
find me there. LinkedIn,pipelinersales.com salespop.net and
(36:13):
the SalesPop YouTube channel.
Okay, we'll make sure thatthat's into the show Notes. And do
you have anything that ourlisteners could, you know, like a
trial of the system or a free consult?
Hey, yeah, either one. If youwant to experience pipeliner, go
to pipelinersales.com you cantake a free trial if you want, or
you can just hit demo and fillin the form and we'll arrange a demo
(36:37):
for you. Okay, So I wouldalways recommend the demo because
quite frankly, the systems areso broad right now that it's much
better to have us do a demo sothat we can tailor it to your particular
needs. But by all means, takethat. We'd love for you to experience
the system.
Okay, we'll make sure. We'llinclude that in the show. Notes John,
it's been a wonderfulconversation. Great insights. You
(36:59):
and I could probably talk onthis stuff for days, so.
Oh yeah, easily. Easily so.
Definitely would love to haveyou on the show down the road again.
And thank you so much for yourtime today.
Yeah, thank you Fred.
Before we wrap, here's yourquick debrief. Each episode in this
nine part series zooms in onone powerful pillar of my Superfans
(37:20):
framework. Nine proven stepsdesigned to turn your business from
a flicker of potential intounstoppable scalable prosperity.
The pillars are S Strategize UUnite P Propel E Elevate R Rally
(37:41):
F Finance A Automate N NurtureS Sustain each week we spotlight
one pillar, extract a gamechanging insight from today's guest
and close with your SuperfanSuccess Spark. A bold 24 hour action
you can take immediately tomove your business forward. Follow
(38:05):
along through all nineepisodes, collect each spark and
you'll have a step by stepplaybook to create superfans who
who fuel rave reviews, rockingreferrals and rising revenue. Then
we reset the cycle with ninebrand new sparks, fresh guests and
even more strategies to helpyou scale with clarity, purpose and
(38:28):
unstoppable momentum. Ready?Here's this episode Spark. So here's
the Superfan Success spark inthis nine part series P propel craft
magnetic stories and offersthat attract ideal customers and
talent. So here's the topinsight from this episode. We actually
(38:51):
give salespeople all the sametools as a management would have
built around empowering thesalesperson and bringing value to
them. So here's your 24 houraction step. Audit your sales pitch.
Does it focus on how yourproduct makes your customer the hero?
If not, rewrite one sentencetoday to spotlight their win.
(39:16):
We hope you took away someuseful knowledge from today's episode
of the Business Super FansPodcast. The path to success relies
on taking action. So go overto businesssuperfans.com and get
your hands on the book. If youhaven't already, join the accelerator
community and take that firststep in generating a team of passionate
supporters for your business.Join us on the next episode as we
(39:38):
continue guiding you on yourjourney to achieve flourishing success
in business.
Hey, Superfans superstarFreddie D. Here in this episode 124,
we're joined by John Golden, aglobally recognized sales and marketing
thought leader, strategist andspeaker. With over 1500 interviews
under his belt for sales pop,a top 2% podcast worldwide, John
(03:33):
has become a powerful voice ina world of sales leadership and innovation.
He brings a wealth ofexperience as the former CEO of Hootwaite
and Omega Performance and nowserves as chief strategy and Marketing
officer at pipeliner CRM. He'salso the best selling author of Winning
(03:56):
the Battle for Sales andSocial Upheaval. And when he's not
transforming sales strategies,he's honing his skills as a dedicated
martial artist and a seeker ofwisdom. Get ready for a conversation
packed with insight, energyand actionable takeaways.
Welcome, John, to the BusinessSuperfans podcast. We're super excited
(04:17):
to have you here.
Yeah, I'm super, super excitedto be here.
So let's go backwards in timeand what's your background? Give
us the scoop.
Yeah. So. Well, it's a longand winding road as most of these
things are. I'm originallyIrish, as you can maybe tell, and
I came to the US during thedot com era. I came with a small
(04:39):
IR company that set up inSilicon Valley. I moved over here
and then over time progressedthrough my career, but I ended up
running a couple ofbusinesses. One was Huthwaite Spin
Selling, which was NeilRackham's bestselling sales book
based on the only scientificresearch ever done on sales. It was
(04:59):
owned by a. There was a parentcompany. It owned like 40, 50 businesses
in Forma, and I was CEO of twoof the businesses. They gave you
businesses and said, here'swhat we expect from this business
in terms of profit margin andyou go and run it like it's your
own. So you basically gothanded a business to run, which was
fantastic. I did that for fiveor six years. And Hathaway was sale,
(05:23):
obviously Spin Selling, sales.So we did, we did sales consulting
with organizations large andsmall across the globe. Performance
improvement. Eventually Ihelped the parent company sell some
of those businesses to aprivate equity group, you know, including
Huthwaite and Omega beforePerformance. And then I, I decided
I want. My wife wanted to moveback to the west coast, so we moved
(05:46):
back to San Diego and Istarted my own management consultancy.
So I went out on my own andstarted gathering clients. And clients
came across Nicholas Kimler,the founder of pipeliner CRM. It's
an interesting story. He hadread the book that I wrote, Winning
the Battle for Sales. And hecontacted me because I had written
in it about CRM. I had said,you know, the worst words a salesperson
(06:09):
can hear is, we're getting anew CRM. Because you just think,
oh, no, this is going to bedisaster data entry. You're going
to have to learn all thissystem. I basically said, the good
times are over when the CRMcomes in. Winning the Battle for
Sales was about analogies ofbattles. It was David and Goliath,
actually, the analogy, becauseDavid was offered all the latest,
(06:30):
greatest armor and everything,and he put it all on. They couldn't
leave me Slingshot. And awaywent and won. So cut a long story
short, Nicholas said, I'mgoing to show you a CRM system and
I'll prove you wrong, right?And I said, knock yourself out. So
he showed me Pipeliner. Andone of the things that we had struggled
(06:51):
with was embedding salesmethodology into a CRM platform.
You couldn't do it withSalesforce, you couldn't do with
any of them a lot of work,customers, programming, all this
nonsense. Pipeliner was easilyable to do that right out of the
gate. So I said, okay, okay,now I'm interested. And it was visual
and it was easy to understandhow to use. And so I did some consulting
(07:13):
work with Nicholas, did anumber of projects, and then eventually
he came and said, do you wantto just come on board, be my partner
and bring this to market andgive up building your management
consultancy? So I said, okay.He was very persuasive, and I thought
this was an interestingopportunity to get back into kind
of technology, but alsocombined with my experiences with
(07:35):
sales and marketing, etc. Sothat's kind of the story of how I
arrived here.
Wow. Before we startedrecording, I mentioned to you that
back in 1986, I wrote my ownCRM using a relational database on
a Mac called Helix. And it wasjust very rudimentary, basic. I could
just track who I talked to andeverything else. I had a Mac and
(07:56):
I had a, you know, kind oflike the backpack thing. And I would
walk into manufacturingcompanies and they'd be like, what?
And I'd whip out my Mac and Ihad an Excel and I had an roi. And
we would sit down and puttogether all the information. And
that was one of my salestactics, was that I didn't have all
the AI tools and all theautomation, but I would emotionally
(08:18):
connect you to doing itbecause we would be sitting together
and putting your ROI and youwould be providing all the numbers.
So it was really Your roi, youowned it. And then you could go to
executive management and says,hey, if we invest in this CAD system,
here's what it's going to do.And I didn't have to be there because
(08:38):
I created you as my internalsalesperson because I emotionally
connected you to it. So. Andyeah, I've been using CRMs since
then. So I'm very interestedin learning more about cross. What
differentiates Pipeliner, CRM?
Yeah, well, one of thefundamental things, this is what
attracted me to it in thefirst place, Freddie, was that all
(09:02):
of the CRM systems weretesting and you know, especially
the big ones, they originallyhad been built from a command and
control perspective. They'dbeen built for how do sales leaders
and executives get all thedata they need? And the burden then
had been placed on thesalespeople to that data and the
sale. And the salespeople werenot seeing any value in the CRM system.
(09:25):
They were seeing it more as aburden. And you know, back in the
day, when we're using otherCRM systems, if I had a dollar for
every time a salesperson saidto me, well, do you want me to fill
in the data on the CRM or doyou want me to sell? Ideally, I'd
like you to do both.
I remember those conversations.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Sowhat attracted me to Pipeliner was
(09:48):
Nicholas. We had built it andthe concept was from the salesperson
first perspective, asbasically our philosophy is if the
salesperson is getting valueout of it, they're the main getting
the value out of it. It'shelping them, is giving them insights,
then they're working in thesystem, then the data is in the system
and then management aregetting exactly what they need. And
(10:11):
the other thing too is we alsolook at salespeople as entrepreneurs
in an organization. They'repretty much the only in a company
that has variable incomethat's not guaranteed because let's
face it, most bonus plansother people have are pretty much
guaranteed. But variableincome, they may even be full commission.
So they have to be creative.They live in a world of uncertainty.
(10:36):
Nothing is predictable forthem. So we wanted to give them all
the tools to manage their ownbusiness. So we actually give them
all the same tools as themanagement would have. Obviously
different view of access todata, but very much all built around
empowering the salesperson andbringing value to the salesperson
and as a result delivering onthe promise of CRM for management.
(10:59):
And the other part that hasbeen really. You talked about AI
and automation as well. Wehave really focused on Bringing automation
and AI into the system so thatwe can take the burden off of the
salesperson, not replace them.Automate routine, repetitive tasks,
get data automatically intothe system, use AI to help prepare,
(11:22):
whether it's analyzing email,but allowing the salesperson to be
the most prepared they can be.And then focus on what salespeople
really want to do, as youknow, Fred, is they want to be creative,
they want to buildrelationships, they want to use their
human skills to the max. Andso now we're at a point, I believe,
where a system like ours withthe AI built in with the automation
(11:46):
is. Now you're starting toreally get to that point where the
CRM system is setting you upfor success as a salesperson and
allowing, rather than being aburden, it's now being a benefit
to you.
No, I can completely relate.In the late 80s and early 90s, I
was using a CRM, another CRMthat I had bought off the shelf.
(12:09):
And I used it in conjunctionwith the daytimer. And so I would
print out all the stuff intothe daytimer that I had put into
the CRM. Because when I'd beat a prospective customer or an existing
customers, I wasn't theresitting there typing into the Mac.
I was basically writing itinto my daytimer. But that came into
(12:30):
play because then I couldbasically show all the prospective
customers, this is a list ofmy customers right off the datetimer.
But then I would leverage. Iwas ahead of my game because the
company wasn't even using aCRM. I was using it by myself. I
created template letter withina CRM. And so when we would do a
whole presentation, the way Iwould blow away the competition was
(12:53):
I would send out a thank youletter to everybody that participated
in the presentation. And soyou were in a shop floor running
the milling machine or thelathe or the wider EDM in the manufacturing
space. Nobody ever recognizesyou. I did. It was a boilerplate
letter, but you still got itin the old school mail because there
was no email back then. Butthat won me more sales because of
(13:19):
the fact that everybody feltthat after the sale we would provide
the best follow up support. SoI want to really emphasize that because
the CRM is a tool, but you'vegot to still, as you mentioned, from
the people perspective, yougot to still engage with people and
you got to build thoserelationship and you got to turn
(13:39):
those relationships into super fans.
Yeah, no, a hundred percent.And that's why one of the deliberate
decisions that we made wasthat while we're a technology company,
we still want to have a humanfirst. If you have support issue
or anything like that, youengage with the human. And we don't
look at support tickets astickets, right? Like, because most
(14:03):
people say, oh, the supportticket, close that as fast as possible,
sort that out and close it.Right. We look at when somebody interacts
with us from a supportperspective, we look at that as an
opportunity not just to solvethe issue at hand, but also to educate,
to understand, to engage indeep conversations. Use that opportunity
to have a conversation withthe customer and see if not only
(14:25):
do you can you fix theproblem, but you can maybe advise
on other ways of doing things,maybe talk to them about maybe here's
a feature you're not using atthe moment, here's what it could
do for you. So we have ourconcept, we call it the wingman.
That support is here as yourwingman. It's there to help you.
We're not interested in justclosing a ticket and moving on. We
actually like it when peoplereach out to us. We're like, cool,
(14:46):
now we've got somebody to talkto. Our system is great, but consistently
we get rave reviews for thecustomer service, for the help when
setting up, for theonboarding, all of that. So at the
end of the day, I totallyagree with you, Freddie. You're not
going to create super fansunless you focus on connecting humanly,
(15:09):
on understanding them, onthem, feeling like you really want
to help them and want tounderstand what they're trying to
achieve. That's how you turnpeople into profound superfans. And
it has to be intentional,right? It has to be a deliberate
decision that you're making.And so like we did as a technology
company, we said, no, we wantto be product and people. That's
(15:31):
how we want to be known. Wewant people to say, fantastic product,
fantastic people workingsymbiotically together.
Well, I'm glad you broughtthat up, John, because the reality
is us being in sales forGates, the signing of the deal isn't
the sale, that's just thepaperwork. The sale is everything
that happens after thetransaction. The onboarding, like
(15:55):
you said, the way you workwith the customers, that's how you
create those superfans. Andmore importantly, if you look at
how you can assist them toreach their business goals now, you
become an asset to thembecause it's not just about technology,
just like you just mentioned.Hey, did you know this new feature,
this functionality, this couldsave you X amount of time and help
(16:19):
you be more productive, etcetera. They don't know. So the fact
that you guys got that, that'sa differentiator, and that's how
you guys are creating superfans of your customers and you're
scaling as quickly as you guys are.
Yeah, no, absolutely. And Ithink you have to have that collaborative
mindset. Some of our largercustomers, they'll come to us and
(16:39):
they'll say, here's somethingthat we need to do. One of our big
customers wanted forms thatthey could use online forms in the
system. At the time, we didn'thave online forms. We went, okay,
this is not just something forthem. This is something that all
our customers could use. So wewent out and we basically created
embedded into the system anonline form functionality, which
(17:02):
is actually as good asSurveyMonkey, things that you could
use. But again, that wascollaborating with the customer,
saying, okay, and then going,wow, this is something that other
customers could benefit from.So not only have you developed something
for that customer and thatobviously you become a partner with
them because you're helpingthem solve their problems even with
(17:23):
something that you didn't havein the first place, but you were
prepared to actually createfor them. And then they are actually
becoming your evangelist toyour other customer base. And look
at how we use this. They useonline forms or other features to
do various tasks within theirbusiness, and then that helps other
customers go, oh, I could dothat too.
Well, it goes beyond that,because at the same time, what you're
(17:45):
showing your customer base isyou actually listen to them. Because
there's so many technologycompanies that invent stuff and create
stuff in a vacuum of what theythink people want versus what people
really want. And there's a bigdifference. And there's successful
software companies that reallyscale are in partnership with their
(18:08):
customers. They're getting thefeedback when the companies have
where customers vote onfeedback, features and functionality,
and then they actually deliverthe stuff that the people want. And
that's how you create momentumand that's how you hang on to that
customer base, because they'regoing, wow, my vendor listens to
me.
(18:30):
I mean, I think that's anextremely important point there,
because there was a time whena lot of companies were starting
to use technology to keepcustomers at an arm's length and
trying to leverage technologyto make technology work for you as
opposed to work for yourcustomers. And often, making life
easy for yourself internallyoften translates into making life
(18:54):
not very easy for purecustomers and. And prospects. So
I think you always have tokeep that peace in mind, and you
always have to look at what isthe true impact and the other thing
too. Cause as you said,sometimes unfortunately, developers
live in their own world andthey don't always understand the
end user.
Oh yeah, I remember in asoftware company, we were creating
(19:16):
construction managementsoftware and I was a GM there and
we asked some functionalityand the programmers came back and
I'm going like, I gotta gothrough 10 clicks to go and get this
thing done. He goes, yeah, butit works. I says, yeah, but I don't
have time to remember. I gottago this, this, this, this, that,
(19:36):
that says, you know, you gottastreamline that up. And they were
like a look on their faces,like, you know, it was funny. So
you're absolutely correct.That's why I just wanted to interject
that point.
And it makes complete sense.One of the things that I learned
early on about bringingproducts to market, Freddie, is that
the customers are going to usethe product in ways that you never
thought they would. They'regoing to have issues that you could
(19:58):
never anticipate. And so a lotof it has to do with then how agile
you are after the fact.
Yeah. So John, can you share astory of how you guys replaced the
platform that they'reutilizing and put in sales pipeline
and how did that transformthat business to where now they're
one of your biggest advocates?
(20:21):
Yeah, there's one. We workwith one of the top cruise lines
in the world, a very regalroyal one that does a lot of work
around the Caribbean. So thereyou can figure that one out. We actually
help them with. This is funny,we were saying about applications
that you don't think of withtheir wedding planning business.
And Pipeliner CRM now usestheir wedding planning business.
(20:43):
Apparently it's a whole growthindustry getting married on cruise
lines, but just not gettingmarried. Then you have anniversaries
coming up, you have all ofthat. So we've helped them build
this whole system where theyrun all of that. They can remind
people anniversaries later.Sure, you could probably even have
a divorce party some stage.But all of that and they're amazed.
(21:05):
Now they're raving fansbecause they're amazed about how
this has made this area oftheir and how it's helped them to
be able to start to reallyscale that business and to really
focus even more on a growtharea like that. And like I said,
it turned into raving fansbecause you wouldn't have said that
there was a natural fit.Right. You would have said, well
(21:26):
this is a slightly differenttype of sale. It could come from
a number of differentchannels. It's a Very relational
type thing. And then youthink, yeah, you can do all of those
things. If you think about it,process and systematize it, you can
take into account all of thoseelements at the end of the day. Let's
face it Freddie, everything inlife is a process, isn't it? And
I think that's the essence ofpipeline or CRM is that it forces
(21:49):
you into process thinking andinto defining and laying out your
process. And you can end up ina situation like this cruise company
has where now they have theirwhole weddings segment running really,
really smoothly and growing.
Yeah. So you've helped themcreate a whole new revenue stream
at the end of the day.
Yeah, absolutely. Maximize it.
(22:10):
Yeah. So you create a wholenew revenue stream for them in a
business that they canbasically keep really engaged with
their customers. So it's not aone time visit. They're maintaining
a long term relationship andpulling those people back in for
other adventures on the seas.
And the other people whoattend the weddings, there's an old
(22:31):
Irish saying that is going toa wedding is the making of another.
So yeah, those guys aredefinitely super fans of what you
guys have done because you'vecompletely expanded your business
model.
I think that's the key. No, Iwas just going to say I think that's
the key at the end of the day,Freddie, is to be open minded and
agile. But it comes fromreally trying to understand the business
(22:56):
in their business. And I thinkthat's a key part is if you're going
to be successful in sellingany SaaS product or any technology
product is you have to becurious about the business of your
prospect or customer. You haveto be curious about the business
of business in general. Ithink there, there once was a time,
let's be honest Freddie, whenthere were salespeople who really
(23:17):
didn't understand how businessworked. They were just all about
like the top line saleselling. Right. And, and I even worked
with one salesperson used tosay to me, John, I sell the sizzle,
not the steak. So he hadinteresting the details of what he
said. He just wanted to sellthe hype. I think those days are
largely behind us now and Ithink you have to be able to connect
(23:40):
on a business level. It has tobe a conversation between peers.
Right.
That's one of the things thatI used to do. That was one of my
techniques that I created andI really killed the competition.
That's why I got to the pointof being in charge of global sales.
I would go in there and say,okay, John, our product does this,
the guys down the street doesthis, the other guy's product does
(24:01):
this. So let's get that out ofthe way. There's three or four of
us in this space. We all cando the job. So John, what's your
real business objectives? Whatare your challenges in your business?
Let's talk about that. And howcan I help you get those goals? And
that would be theconversation. So I got out of the
widget conversation and I gotinto the business strategy conversation.
(24:25):
What's costing you money? Wereyou losing productivity? What if
you had a magic wand? Allthese conversations with the owners
of the shops and the tech guyswould look at the tech stuff, but
we were talking businessstrategy. So I was at a whole nother
level in the conversation. Andusually those sales were short sales
(24:46):
cycles because I talked aboutimpacting their business outcome
versus look how cool thiswidget is that you know, does this
and does that.
Yeah, no, absolutely. And Ithink that's the key. So my advice
to salespeople today is to beinsatiably curious about business
and the business of your, yourprospects and educate yourself. It's
(25:09):
so easy now. I mean, imagineonce a lot harder to do the research
now. Ever since the Internet,you've had the research. Now with
AI, you can actuallysynthesize all of that research and
really start to dig in andunderstand what's going on in an
industry and all of that. Sothere's no excuse really not to be
having business levelconversations because back.
(25:32):
Then I used to have to buy amanufacturer's directory tool and
die sic code was 3544. It'sburned into my brain. I'd buy them
for different states and I'dsay, okay, these are all the tool
and die shops. That's thepresident, that's the vice president
of engineering, that's vicepresident of manufacturing. That's
my target market. I got 300companies in this area, got to go
(25:52):
to work and that was it. Andthat was my research because there
was no Internet back then. Soyeah, there's no excuse really if
you don't take the time toreally leverage a technology that's
available. Like you justmentioned, you can really get a good
synopsis of what's going onwith that company, who the customers
are, what are theirchallenges. And you can come in there,
(26:15):
who educated and having aneducated conversation with that business.
Yeah, and one of the other,one of the other issues that we've
solving for salespeople isjust the one that we're referring
to now. Like the World haschanged so much. And if you think
about it, when you arecommunicating now with a prospect,
it could be phone, email,text, WhatsApp, it could be a bunch.
(26:36):
When you're involved in asales cycle with so much communication
across so many differentplatforms that it's really hard for
you to remember and understandand like, try and sort through all
of that. So we have used AI tohelp you. We have your feeds where
(26:56):
you can click on and off whichplatforms you want to see, but then
you can use AI to summarize,to gauge the sentiment. Look at all
of this correspondence andsay, okay, this is turning not so
good right now, so you mightwant to pay attention. So again,
what we're trying to do isunderstand the reality of salespeople
(27:16):
in the world that they live inand make it as easy as possible for
them to have the intelligentand informed conversations. And let's
face it, just going backthrough all of your emails and your
messages and trying toremember which is this and the thread
on that and whatever, beingable to have right there in front
of you is a huge, huge benefit.
Oh, absolutely. It'severything, really, because now you
(27:37):
can understand whereeverything is at and what's your
next play, how you shouldhandle it. One things I've coached
people on in sales is it'slike the dating situation. Sometimes
you go out on a date and thenit all went well and you reach out
to them and you don't hearfrom them two, three days, our mind
goes into the gutter and intonegative thinking. The reality is
(27:59):
they have a life, they're busydoing something else, they've got
a job or business to run andyou need to sometimes just be patient.
And that's bug them. Becauselike the dating, you start chasing,
they start running. So whatyou're doing is you're giving them
the data to say, okay, I needto sit back and let this run its
(28:20):
route. Based upon theinformation, I should check in two
weeks instead of three daysfrom now. And so now I've making
a much more intelligentdecision and I'm not chasing that
prospect. So, yeah, what youguys are doing is really simplifying
and giving the salesindividual the knowledge of how to
(28:43):
play the game.
Yeah, no, no, absolutely. Andthe other part too is, as you know,
Freddie's sales process is soimportant, but there's a lot of companies
today who either don't have aproperly defined sales process, or
maybe they have a roughlydesigned one here. They big initiative,
designed their sales process,rolled it out, and then thought,
(29:07):
thank goodness We've donethat, now we can move on. And you
go, well okay, that'd be greatif, if customers never change and
they never change their buyingbehavior, the world doesn't change,
you know, your products don'tchange, that'd be great. But unfortunately
we live in a.
It's dynamic.
Dynamic, yeah, it's crazydynamic now with what's happening
with AI, etc. So you have tobe always on top of things and moving
(29:31):
forward and, and that's whywith sales process is so key and
it really is. The bestperforming sales organizations in
the world have well definedsales processes. This is this research
from ZS Associates in McKinseyand stuff. Not just a well defined
process but one that isadhered to rigorously and enforced
(29:53):
and is also very defined at agranular level. So what I mean by
that is you can lay out yoursales process and pipeline. Let's
say you have five stages, sixstages, whatever it is for your particular
industry. But within each ofthose stages you can then define
actions that the seller has totake, actions that the buyer has
(30:15):
to take. And you can evenmandate that to the point where you
can't actually move from onestage to another unless you fulfill
these requirements. But thekey and what that does is that takes
out a lot of the subjectivitybecause how often have you seen this,
Freddie? I'm sure you have. Ihave an opportunity, you have an
opportunity. They're almostidentical. I have it in stage two,
(30:36):
you have it in stage three.Because my gut is it's a stage two.
Your gut is your one is astage three. And what does that do?
It knocks the forecast offbecause maybe you're overly optimistic
or maybe I'm a sandbagger, buteither way the forecast is skewed
because there's noconsistency. So having that consistency,
having everything in the rightplace in your sales process is so
(31:00):
important to predictablerevenue, to forecasting, to pipeline
management in general pipelinegrowth. So that's another thing that
we're very big on. We're inmany ways a process engine, but having
well defined and on a granularlevel and then looking at it as it's
(31:20):
a living breathing thing afterthat. It's something that you need
to analyze, you need to lookat and see how is it working, Are
things changing? Are customersthe way customers react, are bio
changing? So I need to makesome adjustments in it. But I think
that's one of the things thatoften is overlooked in sales is process
really is your friend.
Oh absolutely correct. Becausethat keeps you in check. That makes
(31:45):
sure that it's moving in anorganized fashion. You're not winging
it. Yeah, because the days ofwinging it are long gone, especially
with all the technology that'sout there today. It's also good feedback
because if the customer is notproviding the stuff on their end,
(32:06):
that gives you a gauge thatmaybe they're not so interested in
this thing. And I need tomaybe go circle back and find out
are they really looking tomove forward or is this just an exercise
that someone is curious tolearn about the technology, AKA wasting
your time and so you can findout because of those particular steps?
(32:29):
Yeah. One of my favoritelessons that we used to teach a lot
when we're healthway to teachsales organizations is the concept
of something actually moving,like an opportunity moving forward
and it stalled or no movement.Right. And you would say, okay, well
that should be easy toidentify, but it's not. Here's great
(32:50):
examples, right? Somebody,somebody comes back from a sales
call and you say, how did thecall go? Fantastic. You go, okay,
tell me about it. And theysay, yeah, well I presented this,
we had this conversation andyou go, okay, well what are the next
steps? Or is agreed to havelunch next week. You go, great, what's
he doing between now and nextweek? And he said, well, I don't
(33:13):
know, go well, what tasks haveyou set them? How can you gauge,
how is this opportunity movingforward between now and next week?
Because that's just acontinuation and that may be just
a free lunch for that personor a virtual one if you're selling
virtually these days. But ifyou can't point to anything that
they're doing, who else isinvolved in the buying decision?
(33:33):
And they say blah, blah, thisperson. Okay, could you have them
come to the call next week?Right now, something to do. So I
can now start to gauge reallyyour level of commitment or interest
in this. So I think that's oneof the ones that I still love. Is
it really moving forward or isthis just a continuation? Because
a continuation is not reallyforward momentum. It's just you're
(33:56):
in a holding pattern. If theprospect is not doing anything, they're
not actively engaged, thenit's a continuation and you're not
actually moving.
Oh, absolutely correct. I wasselling a company back in my early
sales stages, but fortunately,like I mentioned, I got some really
high end training. I wasselling engineering software. We
also had manufacturing, but Iwas dealing with the VP of engineering
(34:18):
and they were looking toupgrade. They were already existing
customer. And one of thethings I learned is you want to sell
wide. So I went through thewhole different departments. I got
to the CFO guy and talk tohim, and he goes, well, really, the
VP of engineering doesn't havea budget. The manufacturing people
have a budget and are lookingto upgrade their manufacturing technology.
(34:39):
I never would have thought ofthat. And he goes, the VP of manufacturing
plays golf with the owner ofthe company, so they're buddies.
So I switched my whole salestactics, started off and built the
relationship with themanufacturing guy. And that turned
out to be a $400,000 sale backin 1986. I got the plaque right up
(35:01):
on the wall for the top salesguy. But it was because of the fact
that I just did what you justsuggested. I went and found out what
was going on, who's involved,who are the players, and we called
them the sales training aswho's the fox in the company? And
that manufacturing guy was thefox because of the relationship he
had with the owner of thecompany. Had I never looked around
(35:24):
there, I would have been oneof those guys spinning my wheels,
trying to sell to theengineering guy. I had no budget,
no relationship, no nothing.Just had a. Had a want.
Yeah, yeah, or yeah, I wantfor maybe a free lunch every month
or so.
So as we kind of get closer tothe end here, John, how can people
find you?
Yeah, so you can find me onLinkedIn very easily, John Golden.
(35:48):
You can find Pipeliner CRM.Pipelinersales.com is the website.
You can find salespop.net onour SalesPop YouTube channel, which
is our give back educationalplatform where we just like you do,
we interview people and bringdifferent perspectives on sales,
marketing, leadership,motivation, et cetera. So you can
find me there. LinkedIn,pipelinersales.com salespop.net and
(36:13):
the SalesPop YouTube channel.
Okay, we'll make sure thatthat's into the show Notes. And do
you have anything that ourlisteners could, you know, like a
trial of the system or a free consult?
Hey, yeah, either one. If youwant to experience pipeliner, go
to pipelinersales.com you cantake a free trial if you want, or
you can just hit demo and fillin the form and we'll arrange a demo
(36:37):
for you. Okay, So I wouldalways recommend the demo because
quite frankly, the systems areso broad right now that it's much
better to have us do a demo sothat we can tailor it to your particular
needs. But by all means, takethat. We'd love for you to experience
the system.
Okay, we'll make sure. We'llinclude that in the show. Notes John,
it's been a wonderfulconversation. Great insights. You
(36:59):
and I could probably talk onthis stuff for days, so.
Oh yeah, easily. Easily so.
Definitely would love to haveyou on the show down the road again.
And thank you so much for yourtime today.
Yeah, thank you Fred.
Before we wrap, here's yourquick debrief. Each episode in this
nine part series zooms in onone powerful pillar of my Superfans
(37:20):
framework. Nine proven stepsdesigned to turn your business from
a flicker of potential intounstoppable scalable prosperity.
The pillars are S Strategize UUnite P Propel E Elevate R Rally
(37:41):
F Finance A Automate N NurtureS Sustain each week we spotlight
one pillar, extract a gamechanging insight from today's guest
and close with your SuperfanSuccess Spark. A bold 24 hour action
you can take immediately tomove your business forward. Follow
(38:05):
along through all nineepisodes, collect each spark and
you'll have a step by stepplaybook to create superfans who
who fuel rave reviews, rockingreferrals and rising revenue. Then
we reset the cycle with ninebrand new sparks, fresh guests and
even more strategies to helpyou scale with clarity, purpose and
(38:28):
unstoppable momentum. Ready?Here's this episode Spark. So here's
the Superfan Success spark inthis nine part series P propel craft
magnetic stories and offersthat attract ideal customers and
talent. So here's the topinsight from this episode. We actually
(38:51):
give salespeople all the sametools as a management would have
built around empowering thesalesperson and bringing value to
them. So here's your 24 houraction step. Audit your sales pitch.
Does it focus on how yourproduct makes your customer the hero?
If not, rewrite one sentencetoday to spotlight their win.
(39:16):
We hope you took away someuseful knowledge from today's episode
of the Business Super FansPodcast. The path to success relies
on taking action. So go overto businesssuperfans.com and get
your hands on the book. If youhaven't already, join the accelerator
community and take that firststep in generating a team of passionate
supporters for your business.Join us on the next episode as we
(39:38):
continue guiding you on yourjourney to achieve flourishing success
in business.
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