December 21, 2021 • 50 mins
The elongated buying journeys in the industrial sector are a great argument for using a customer relations management tool. The many touchpoints and check-ins during the journey provide fuel to power your CRM engine, and that data eventually helps you make insights about the best sources for customers and key points in their buying journey.
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Episode Transcript
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Joey Strawn (00:00):
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of
the industrial Marketer Podcastyour place for the tips, tech
trends and tactics forindustrials who care about
driving leads to theircompanies. I'm one of your
hosts. My name is Joey, a humbleindustrial marketer advocate.
And I, as always enjoined by mycohort, my friends, Nels on the
(00:23):
shelf, Jensen, how are you, myman, it's seasonal time we're
able to read it out and actuallyput you around places
Nels Jensen (00:32):
It is it's good to get out of the dark places and
see the light.
Joey Strawn (00:37):
Exactly. Well, Nelson on the shelf. The thing
that I am so excited about isit's that holiday time of year,
it's the Yule tide of it all.
And we are here to wrap up notonly just our month on
industrial b2b sales and howthey intersect with marketing in
the digital spheres. Buthonestly, we're here to wrap up
(00:57):
our entire first year of theindustrial marketer first.
Right? i This has been such afun and joyful blessing this
year, Nelson, this is the lastepisode that's gonna go live in
this calendar year. That's notto say we don't have a bunch
more stuff planned. But youknow, the end of the calendar
(01:17):
year, this has been such a funride this year now.
Nels Jensen (01:22):
It is it is. And in a couple of minutes. Speaking of
the holiday season, we'll get tomy own personal epiphany about
industrial.
Joey Strawn (01:34):
Ooh, see, I like that kind of like, Don't unwrap
until Christmas, except peoplewill get to unwrap it on this
episode, which is so exciting.
So here's the thing we buriedthe lede. It's in the title of
the episode, so people know. Butnow we decided to wrap up this
year's conversation by sort oftying some strands together from
conversations we started earlierthis year. We had a very special
(01:57):
guest on early in the season.
His name was deputy Dev. And hewas Brent and he came and talked
to us about the importance ofCRM. When it came to industrials
and b2b as well now, we promiseda follow up episode on how
people can actually implementthose CRMs and work with them
(02:20):
and make stuff happen them. Andhere's the gift of the season
now. This is that episode isexciting. It is.
Nels Jensen (02:29):
That's right, let's get into the granular benefits
of CRMs. And why they'reespecially useful for
industrials, that's sort oftipping off my personal
epiphany. But yeah, so you know,this is a, this is really good,
hearty industrial talk.
Joey Strawn (02:51):
Yes, and it is, and we're gonna get nerdy, we're
gonna get geeky. And but what Ihope is that people dealing with
this stuff on a day in and dayout basis, or if you're
listening to this, because youhave to make a budgetary
decision around one of thesetools, and you're not sure where
they fit into the scope. I'mglad that you're here. And we're
going to dive in now, one of thethings that I did want to start
(03:13):
with is just a gentle reminder,because as much as I'd love to
think that everybody now haslistened to every single episode
of the industrial MarketerPodcast, they may have missed
one or two. And so I'm going toredefine what a CRM is for
people just in case they missedthe first part. So a CRM when
we're talking about it, in thisregard, we're talking about a
(03:35):
customer or a clientrelationship management or a
manager system. So this is a setof tools and this is a system or
a technology used for managingrelationships and interactions
with your current and andpotential, you know, your
marketing customers with thegoal of improving those
relationships, whether that'smaking sure that you have
(03:56):
positive, consistent ongoingcommunications with them,
whether it's updating a sale orupdating a contract or updating
a renewal or a vendorrelationship, but it's making
sure that you are able to haveall of the strands moving and
all of the plates spinning tokeep your relationships as
healthy as possible between yourcurrent customers and any people
(04:19):
that you hope to do businesswith in the future. Now, did I
get that
Nels Jensen (04:24):
I get that pretty good. Yeah. And and I also would
just like to touch on one thingthat it is not, you know, please
yeah, so So technology platformsin the industrial sector, are
just super valuable whenimplemented correctly, right.
The the management executionsystem mes does a great job of
helping you with your qualityand processes. You know, you
(04:46):
open up the hood, you look atyour operations ERPs great job
with resources, helping you frominventory to scheduling
whatever, but the customerrelation management tool is not
a sales manager tool to check upand Make sure people are doing X
number of cold calls that it isnot an inspection tool. It is
not an evaluation at all. Butone of the one of the tough
(05:09):
things, there are a lot of CRMsthat have been bought and
installed and are beingleveraged. And one of the
reasons is the disconnect withthe salespeople where they may
not see value in inputting thestatus. So one of the things
we're going to talk about is,what is the sales job you need
to do with your salespeople? Tounderstand the value in the
CRMs? And how it positions themto be more efficient and do
(05:32):
better work? And key thing ofall? What's their goal of a CRM,
raise revenue, right, and
Joey Strawn (05:37):
Raise revenue and in efficiency, like, yeah,
fastest way to get to newrevenue, from existing
relationships or from exertduring the relationships that
you have. And I now I'm so happythat you brought that up,
because you know, what is a CRM,we've talked a little bit about
that in our last episode, butit's always a good reminder.
(06:00):
Because if you have the wrongconcept in your head, and if
we're talking about you know,personalizing, or you know,
automating some things withinthe CRM, and you're thinking
email program, or God forbid,ERP system, that's a, that's a
much, much, much differentprocess, what we're diving into,
and it's because we're gonnasay, CRM a lot. And that's
(06:22):
because it's hard to say,customer slash client
relationship management system.
And also, we know that there areabout 1,000,000,002 as of 2021.
Now, tools that call themselvesCRM. So if you're curious what
we mean when we say a CRM, orlike what it means as a tool,
like, what would you buy? Thisis like a Salesforce or a
(06:45):
nutshell, HubSpot has a CRMbuilt into it. NetSuite Monday,
CRM, Zoho has one. So any toollike that, anything that's
reminding you When renewals arewhen client birthdays are when
it's keeping a catalogue of theemails and the calls and the
(07:05):
documents and those elements ofthe sales and client vendor
relationship? That's the toolset that we're talking about in
this in this episode, when we'retalking about setting those up
later when we talk with Brent,about integrating those systems
with your other tech stack andthe importance of finding the
(07:26):
right one? Because I mean, now,I have my answer to this. But we
get asked this all the time,like well, what's the best CRM?
I know my answer now, but whatdo you say to someone?
Nels Jensen (07:41):
I'd say it's, it's the one that your sales teams
gonna use buy into?
Joey Strawn (07:47):
Okay, that's a better answer than what I was
gonna say. I like that quite abit.
Nels Jensen (07:53):
Yeah, you guys will use
Joey Strawn (07:55):
The best CRM is the one the salesman will agree to
use. But yes, because it's gonnadepend. I hate that. The old
marketing speak answer? Well, itdepends. It depends.
Nels Jensen (08:05):
Yeah. I was gonna say it depends, yeah.
Joey Strawn (08:08):
I thought that's my answer is it's gonna depend on a
couple of factors like size ofsales team, length of sales
process, you know, those typesof things. But honestly, your
answer of the one thesalespeople will use is way
better.
Nels Jensen (08:22):
Yeah. So, you know, what I wondered. It's like,
there's so many SaaS platformsthat are really narrow
verticals, you know, theirtechnology and software is
amazing. And I, you know, Ialways wondered, how come there
aren't CRM specifically forindustrials? And the answer is
because you can make almost anyof these CRMs work for the
industrial process. And myepiphany was that, you know, the
(08:47):
elongated buying cycle formanufacturing and industrials,
the the nonlinear nature of it,the so many potential touch
points in there actually playsto the strength of CRMs. It
gives you more opportunities fortouch points, and it gives you
more opportunities to put indata and I know it can be kind
(09:09):
of a pain, but the more data youinput into the CRM, the more
insights the more actionableinsights you'll be able to pull
out once you have somesubstantive data in there about
not just closed rates, but whata drop off points right are,
what are the two or threeactions on your lead scoring
that add up to Hey, they'reready to buy, you know, the the
(09:29):
Elon gated buying cycle is agreat reason to use a CRM,
right? You can't you can't youneed to be in touch with these
folks and know where they areand know what they have done.
And what haven't they done. Sothis the long the elongated
buying process to me is a greatargument for making sure your
(09:51):
CRM is leveraged as best as itcould.
Joey Strawn (09:54):
I I couldn't agree more and I love that you tied
that together with the itdepends and because that is
really the heart of in thisscenario, when we say it depends
on the toolset. That's what wemean is that you know, the
number of salespeople that youhave spread over the number of
states or regions or territoriesthat you have them laid across.
(10:17):
That makes a difference betweenwhether you need an enterprise
system like a Salesforce tool,or you could get by with
something that's cheaper andmore based around small teams
like a HubSpot or a nutshell,you know, the answer of what is
the best one is going to be letme sit down with you and learn
your scenario. And then therewill be a best one for you.
(10:38):
Because now to your point is allratcheting up and ratcheting
down the volume and theintensity of the activities. And
we're talking the things thatmake a huge difference. With
CRMs. The you know, you talk tomen, you mentioned earlier that
it does change revenue. Oh man,I wanted to find I had a stat
here is that we, there was astudy that was done, that
(11:02):
marketing teams who have accessto a company wide CRM, deliver
three times more revenue thanmarketing teams that are acting
without a centralized, you know,collection of customer data. You
know, the successful CRMtemplate implementations boost
revenue, on average, 41% persalesperson, because the sales
(11:25):
processes that are beingsystemized, automated, and then,
like consistently rolled outacross a sales team are benefits
that if you have like the bestsales guy in the world, and
you've built an entireorganization, and entire revenue
book off the back of you know,this guy and his team's efforts.
(11:48):
That's fantastic. That isfantastic. But the problem is
when that guy goes away hisenergy level, his processes, his
little book, his Little RedBook, sales tip,
Nels Jensen (11:59):
All his all his spreadsheets, they go away as
well. So door, right?
Joey Strawn (12:05):
If there's a documented process that a tool
can then keep in, you know, inflow for you. So you and your
team aren't trying to keep 17spec plates spinning for 45
different contracts at the sametime, that's going to take a lot
of the well slipping throughthat, well, those sales slipped
(12:25):
through the cracks. Oh, we'llnever know how many sales or how
much revenue we lost last year,because we didn't X, Y or Z.
Well, now you can know how muchrevenue you're losing. And you
can stop and siphon those holes,like that's what a CRM is
really, really good about, andsetting up those processes,
making sure that your salescycle and now this is where I
(12:47):
wanted to get back to what youwere talking about is the
benefits of it. And why b2b andb2c used it differently is it's
the same set of tools, Kroger isgoing to use Salesforce just
like a GE for a GE or you know,a an apple is going to use one,
but they're going to use it indifferent ways. Because and I'll
(13:09):
start with what you said, thesales cycle is way different.
You may be dealing with thedifference between a sales cycle
of a guy finds out about a salereaches researchers in one day,
and then has a purchasedecision. The third day after
that. Most b2b is and people arenodding their heads are already
are thinking 18 months salescycle. Yeah, how do you manage
(13:33):
30 contacts across an 18 monthsales cycle that start at
different phases of the year?
Nels Jensen (13:39):
And the possibility that okay, key contact,
whatever, maybe it's a persona,maybe it's the engineering
person, maybe it's thepurchasing person, whatever, you
haven't heard from them in acertain period of time, let's
just say 60 days, whatever. Hey,drop in the reminder, email,
(14:00):
Hey, what else? Can we help youthe demo, whatever, you know,
you may go back months from nowand find out that you know what
the people who responded tothose, hey, how you been 60
days, emails turn out to be 40%better, more likely to close
than the people who don't. Soall of a sudden, okay, here's a
here's a sort of magic point inthe process that you know, you
(14:20):
can reliably count on to movepeople along in the funnel,
right? That right you can createit's there's, there's a benefit
in creating drop off points foryour prospects as well, right,
you're not going to waste theirtime anymore or your own time
anymore. Right?
Joey Strawn (14:37):
And even mapping out like you were saying,
mapping out what those touchpoints look like because, right
and in a lot of industries, whatthey were saying, what's the old
adage nails is like, if they seeyou seven times, they'll
remember you so it's like okay,well for juicy fruit or gum. We
need to hit them with abillboard and a radio ad and a
(14:58):
magazine ad and then by the timeThey've hit their lunch break at
work, they've seen a seventimes, I would love it if b2b
were that simple, but we'retalking, you may have two
contacts, who need to hit 40 or50 times across the span of two
months for that sale to truly,truly take hold. And that is a
different level of managementand a different level of
(15:21):
assisted technologicaladvancement. Let's say that you
could implement if you know whatthose touch points are, and can
map them across your sales teamas a whole.
Nels Jensen (15:32):
We'll talk with right we'll talk with Brent
about that about the the mappingof your own process and make it
real visual. And that's andthat's where you guys can get
together with the sales andmarketing you can do
collaborative lead scoring andfigure out really Hey, is what
are the truly valuable actionsthat people are taking? And how
to get that into your system,yeah.
Joey Strawn (15:53):
Exactly. I mean, one of the hugest benefits of
any of any CRM, any tech stack,anything we talk about in a,
especially on this show, isgoing to be the reporting
ability and the data pulling offof it. Now, I don't want to say
and now this is something that,that you and I talked about when
we're planning these shows is wedon't want it to sound like it's
all opportunities, and kittensand roses. Because as with any
(16:18):
reality, as with any longstanding company and processing,
these, there will be hurdles,that anybody b2b or b2c are
running run across when tryingto change any sort of techstack,
or any sort of process orimplement a CRM like this. And
so we want to do at leastidentify that we know there are
a few challenges and how to getaround those mean, one is just
(16:42):
going to be time, you know, anynew system, whether it's you're
switching from a Mac to a PC, oryou're switching from TurboTax
to using a different sort ofsoftware, whatever it may be,
there's going to be a learningcurve. And a software that is
designed to help a salesprocess, there could be a huge
(17:04):
learning curve for people whohave just have the natural
processes ingrained in them. SoI would say that's one of the
biggest challenges right off thebat analysis that just that that
time to learn and implement. Imean, I, anything you want to
add to that are there. So youwant to bring up?
Nels Jensen (17:22):
Right, so so there's no such thing as a
singular training session.
Right? Right, you're gonna traina group, you're gonna, you're
gonna train a group of people onanything, especially a
technology platform, you'regonna have training, then that's
going to be followed by side byside, help one on ones, you're
going to have follow uptraining, you're going to have
session to share best practicesand tips from the early
(17:43):
adopters, you're going to haveeventually remedial training for
the, you know, laggards, youknow, there, we've all
experienced training that didn'twork, right. Training is in
itself a five or six stepprocess. So dedicate yourself to
properly training with CRMs.
It's super important. We've allbeen to sessions where we sat
(18:06):
through for hours, and thefollowing Monday, somebody said,
Hey, how do I do that? Again?
You know, so tree trading, youknow, do not underestimate the
time and, and effort that goesinto the treasure, but also did
I tell him that don'tunderestimate the payoff, right?
You get them. And if the fastfollowers reward them, recognize
them, and the pack will follow,but yet drowning, and the time
(18:29):
is essential.
Joey Strawn (18:32):
And speaking of that pack, like getting that buy
in, if you have like if oneadvocate is great, but if you
have a team of people that arelike we're gonna make this work,
that's that's just great buy in,I would say one of the last
hurdles, and we've kind ofmentioned this already in the
episode is make sure that theyhave those processes understood
the idea of oh, well, we knowwhat it takes. In general, I
(18:54):
guess ideas that's not specificenough is, you know, we, when
we're talking about mapping itout, we mean, on paper, okay,
the first thing they do is theyget a phone call from so and so
about these things. And thenusually, we see at work if we,
you know, have a face to facemeeting within the first month.
And those are the phases of thissales process that you need to
(19:17):
map out. And it needs to be onpaper.
Nels Jensen (19:19):
Yeah, you can, yeah, you need to document it.
And Brent will talk a lot moreabout this, but you can, you
know, you also want to avoidfriction, because some people on
your team may do it one way andother people may do it another
but the CRM, you know, you know,there, it's gonna rely on
certain standards and standardways of doing things. And that's
(19:42):
very important, again, thecommunicate the big picture, why
we're doing this, why theoutcomes matter, and how
they're, you know, in many casesare no shortcuts to getting the
data into the system. You know,it's all about the actionable
insights. And the more data thatgoes in and the cleaner that it
goes in, the more accurate Willinside she'll emerge with.
Joey Strawn (20:02):
I agree and and to be in to be quite honest and to
wrap this up with a little bow,a holiday bow, if you will,
before we go and on down on theshop floor. And see what Brent
has to say is that that isreally where a lot of the
benefits from this come in. Iknow we've harped on this a lot.
And you could be saying, well,Joey, of course, we would love
to have something like that. Butwe always get shut down. And
(20:24):
it's just an uphill battle andno one's gonna use it. And it's
really probably at the end ofthe day not worth it. And I
would always err on the side ofit is going to be worth it. It
may be an uphill climb. But Iknow that I promise you the
automations that you can find inthe efficiencies that you can
iron out without losing dealsfalling through the cracks that
(20:46):
have always been there. Theirreporting ability to pull out
what works at which stages ofthe funnel, and where different
elements can be added in toincrease revenue or increase
contract values. Maybe, maybeyou could find ways to increase
the velocity to close there justunderstanding the data around
(21:09):
what happens when money iscoming into the company is
invaluable. And honestly, andhere's the secret everybody
listening to this on the salesside, or on the marketing side,
or on the C suite side. Here's ahuge secret. Don't tell anybody
about this. But here's a hugebenefit of getting a CRM and
taking the time to map all ofthis stuff out. It forces your
(21:31):
marketing and sales teams towork together and understand
what the other side is doingmore, so you can make more money
faster. Don't tell anybodybecause that's a huge secret. i
Now, are you going to keep yourmouth shut? I love to help
brands. I love it. Well, we'llsee if Brandon
Nels Jensen (21:52):
He'll be surprised to hear that. Yeah,
Joey Strawn (21:55):
Exactly. So that's what I would say is is the juice
in this case is worth thesqueeze. Brent is going to get
so much more into detail abouthow it works and things he has
seen companies run up against inways to get around that but Nels
before we wrap up this thisfirst segment, is there anything
more you want to say about thejoys of the benefits of CRS?
Nels Jensen (22:19):
You know, I think one one other thing it too is,
you know, this helps turnassumptions into knowledge or
disprove assumptions, right? Orsomebody who just says, Hey,
Facebook's the only way for usto go. In the end, you'll have a
good idea of how many actualdeals did you close that
originated with Facebook? Youknow, not a great example. But
(22:39):
you know, yeah, the CRMs helpturn assumptions into knowledge.
And that's possible.
Joey Strawn (22:44):
And I I love that.
And another thing that helpsturn assumptions into knowledge
is Deputy Dev and Brent on theshop floor. So now, let's head
on down there for the last timethis year. And head on down to
the shop floor suffer some realactionable advice from deputy
dev Brent. Welcome back Nels. Wehave taken the long journey down
(23:10):
to the shop floor. And aspromised, this is our holiday
episodes right around theholiday season. I have a gift
for everyone else would you liketo help me unwrap this gift?
Nels Jensen (23:24):
Yes, the gift that never stops giving to
Joey Strawn (23:28):
The gift that never stops giving. As promised
everybody we have brought BrentLathrop, Deputy dev back to the
industrial Marketer Podcastearlier. We had John earlier in
the season Brent and we promisedto bring you back for CRM talk
specifics. Brent, welcome backto the show.
Brent Lathrop (23:50):
Well, thank you, um, have lofty expectations
being labeled a gift now. Sowe'll see how this goes if I can
live up to those expectationsnow.
Joey Strawn (24:00):
I was very surprised that you let me put
you in a box and actually wrapyou up considering this as an
audio medium, but you went withit and I was so happy. So that
was a gift to me. But you andyour knowledge and your
wonderful brain Brent are thegift to the industrial marketer
listeners. Nelson, I have justspent a handful of minutes
(24:23):
talking about what CRMs are, youknow, so people know that their
customer relationship tools, andsort of some scenarios in which
you might want to think aboutusing them and how they differ
from b2b and b2c usage. But wewanted to get you here because
you're you deal with this stufffor clients day in and day out.
(24:44):
And I know specifically, becauseI've worked with you that you
dealt with CRM implementationand getting companies and
clients that may not have beenusing it before using it in a
way that's beneficial. So yourknowledge is just going to be
really key to putting This intouse for some of our listeners.
Brent Lathrop (25:02):
I hope so
Joey Strawn (25:03):
So I'm really excited that you're here. So
just start off, you know, whenyou're training a client like,
let's, we've got the buy in forthe CRM, we've already sold
them, they think, oh, we shouldhave this or in a likely
scenario, I know yours that theyalready have it, but just kind
of aren't using it. Where do youstart with clients that need to
(25:24):
need help getting trained onsomething like this, or need
help setting something like thisup? Like where? Where do you
kind of start with them andgetting their headspace in the
right place?
Brent Lathrop (25:33):
Well, first, it's deciding what platform to use.
Salesforce might be the big nameand the cool the Tesla out
there, right. But not everybodyneeds or can afford a Tesla.
Right? Right. It's, it's theit's the big name. And sometimes
that's overkill for especiallyif it's a company that's just
starting in the CRM business, itcan be overwhelming, because
(25:55):
there are so many differentoptions out there these days.
But just figuring out what youneed from a CRM, if it's just
something simply to bring allyour contacts and all your
clients into, you know, a clientrelationship management tool,
just so you can log notes, whenyou're calling them, you know,
(26:15):
for a smaller company, thatmight be good, a small
Salesforce of one or two, youdon't need something like
Salesforce. You know, once youonce you start getting into a
bigger team of sales sales team,you might need something like a
Salesforce or HubSpot orsomething with a little bit more
power. And I'm through it.
Right. Right. So yeah, the firstthing is, is figuring out what
(26:36):
your business needs are, andfiguring out which tool to use.
Because if you go intosomething, and you start getting
down, you know going down thatthat trail, figure out that you
don't need that or it's not afit for you, then then you've
wasted your time. Yeah, yeah.
Joey Strawn (26:56):
Or money. I mean, Salesforce is not cheap. So you
could be wasting a handful ofmoney there, too. i Yeah, I
agree. I mean, even in the firstsegment, we talked a little bit,
you know, HubSpot has a CRM now.
You see ads for places likemonday.com, they have their has
a CRM, like there are optionsout there. So you know, Zoho is
(27:17):
something
Brent Lathrop (27:20):
Yeah. So it was like, Yeah, everyone, now they
have a suite of tools. And I'veseen a couple of our clients go
that route as well. That it'snot as robust. But if you're
just dipping your toe and tryingto see if it's something that
you want to get into, you coulduse that for a couple years. And
then once that, that you outgrowthat, that system, then you can
(27:40):
jump to something more like aHubSpot or Salesforce, it's a
that's a little more cost to it,but has more patrols and more
power.
Nels Jensen (27:48):
Right. So so you've got somebody on board, you've
got a system in mind, then it'stime to actually get the
training scheduled and getrolling with with the, you know,
eventual implementation. Sowhere do you start with the
training.
Brent Lathrop (28:03):
Um, usually, I like to document that we'll have
a meeting with our client. Andwe'll we'll go through that
process before we're even setup. So we're going in, we're
setting it up. And then we'rekind of documenting that
process. So not only the peoplethat are currently at the
company, when we have thattraining, because we'll
eventually have a trainingmeeting and going over, you
(28:24):
know, how you put somebody intoa lead and convert them into,
you know, depending on thesystem and opportunity or a deal
or whatever it is. So, so wecould document that. So if
somebody comes and is hired, ayear later, you can give them
that documentation as a company.
And then they'll know theprocesses that you have as a
company and they can adhere toyour the workflows and the
(28:46):
vernacular and the way you namethings, you know, stuff like
that.
Joey Strawn (28:52):
I want to keep I want to key in on that really
quick, Brent, because youmentioned processes, and that
something that we talked aboutearlier in the episode is that
understanding what thoseprocesses are, and mapping them
out can be critically important.
And what I'm hearing you say isthat, that you should go so far
as to actually document orflowchart what those processes
look like. So everybody can beon the same page. That's Is that
(29:16):
what you're saying?
Brent Lathrop (29:19):
Oh, absolutely, yeah, you know, people are
visual, most people are visualtoo. So being able to see that
documentation and going in thereand seeing you know, seeing the
buttons that need to be clickedor right, you know, the the
process going from that, thatyou know, if it's a lead that
comes in and you're going fromfrom lead to opportunity, like
(29:42):
seeing those steps is verybeneficial for people when
they're first starting insteadof kind of telling them what to
do walking, walking through itwith them one time over the
phone or you know, over zoom orsomething like that, and then
forgetting it taking theirnotes, you know, people taking
their notes beneficial, but ifthey have their own notes, and
(30:03):
they have a piece ofdocumentation to go with it is
definitely useful
Joey Strawn (30:08):
Or you make it you know, like get get futuristic
with it, make it a little video,a screen share.
Brent Lathrop (30:14):
I've done that as well, yeah,
Joey Strawn (30:15):
Walk them through the different elements, because
you know what, what I so what Ihear you say Brett is, it's
probably not a great idea for acompany to drop, you know,
$400,000 on Salesforce, justimplement it and set it up and
then just tell their salesmenuse it with no, with no
direction and no guide and nohelp. It's just, you know, get
(30:36):
in there and they'll figure itout. Right, everything is super
easy in all CRMs eyes, what Ithat that's not what I hear you
saying?
Brent Lathrop (30:45):
Correct? Yeah, we've dealt with a couple of
several companies that come in,and like, our sales team doesn't
use our Salesforce anymore. Andthat's one of the reasons why
they don't have those processesset beforehand. And it fails.
And I think it's, you know, 60,or 70% of companies fail with
their CRM implementations,because they don't do things
(31:07):
like that. They don't come inand they don't set themselves up
for success. And then, you know,a year later when their sales
reps aren't using it, becausethey put in like 30 different
steps for the process, insteadof simplifying it upfront. It
just, it's bloated, and theydon't, they don't think about
that upfront. So it's definitelysomething to think about before
(31:27):
you get into that game.
Nels Jensen (31:29):
Yeah, but you know, change is hard. And I'm going to
assume that a lot of the timethis is the process that
leverages the CRM the most isdifferent than the current sales
process, or sales and marketinghandoff. And so how important is
it to be able to adapt the CRM alittle bit to the current
(31:52):
operation? Or is it? No, wereally need to leverage the CRM
to make it work, we really needto go through a change
management process.
Brent Lathrop (32:03):
To be honest, I don't think about that part.
Nels Jensen (32:08):
But that's but that's the big, that's the big
hurdle. Right? Is that Yeah, youknow, if people aren't using it,
it means that the, the hurdleswere too big, you know, and that
they're, the company hasn't donea good enough job of changing
the culture to take advantage ofthe technology.
Brent Lathrop (32:26):
Correct. But usually that that is because
they have too many cooks in thekitchen, they come in, and they
try to do everything at once,right, stead of just, you know,
going into that, you know, likeusing training wheels, I guess,
you know, using a bike, youknow, if your three year old,
three year old, five year old,you're not going to throw your
kid on there and just startrunning out, send them out and
(32:48):
send them out into traffic andhope they...
Joey Strawn (32:49):
That's not how you do that. No, that's funny at the
ER that year.
Unknown (32:55):
So you got to use training wheels, right. And most
companies get excited about CRM,because it's a great tool, it
can be an absolutely amazingtool for managing your business,
manage your sales pipeline,right? Managing your customers,
but if you don't do it, right,you're gonna get hurt, or you're
gonna not do it right. Andyou're gonna regret it, you
know, later down the line,because you're not, you're not
(33:17):
setting yourself up for success.
Because if you're taking those,if you're taking those steps,
you should be able to accountfor simplicity, that will mean
you're referring to like anolder generation knows, right?
And that that has your trouble.
Yeah, that has trouble with withtechnology or, or that change,
(33:40):
right. So making sure that it'sit's simple to use up front. And
then once people get in there,and they're used to it, then you
add little things here and therethat make it more a little bit
more complex, and make it morepowerful, I guess you could say
as well.
Joey Strawn (33:57):
Well, and one thing that that I wanted, and this is
just for my experience, too, isin that question of well, where
does the decision come from?
Does the company adapt to thetool? Or does the tool adapt to
the company? Unfortunately, it'sthat old marketing answer of a
kinda depends. But one of thethings that I will say, that I
have seen over and over again,is that a lot of times there
(34:19):
isn't a singular company way tofor the tool to adapt to
everybody in the system, thecompany sort of does it
differently. And so most of thetime, it's the company having to
adapt to the tool, because thecompany has to adapt to
everybody doing it a singularway. And that just happens to be
(34:40):
manifested by, you know, theintroduction of that tool. So,
if I have seen it work, though,where if sales teams are really
in line and this happens a lotyou know Nels, you and I talked
about this in the first half ofthe episode with the difference
between a b2b CRM and a b2cusage A CRM, because the b2b
sales cycles, as we talked aboutare very different, they can be
(35:04):
a lot longer, they can involve alot more steps, which is where a
lot of the CRM customizationcomes in, very, very heavily
into play for b2b is, okay,well, we don't have, you know,
an awareness, interestconsideration and purchase. It's
not that straightforward andb2b, we have, you know,
awareness, research,consideration or research, part
(35:27):
two, you know, io, P Osubmission legal in, you know,
legal introduction, there's, youknow, 12 steps, and then the
journey takes 18 months. Sohaving a system, and that's
where brands, you know, I wantto bring it back to what you
were saying is identifying thecorrect system, and
understanding what yourprocesses look like, you can tie
(35:49):
those together to say, Okay,well, we don't need a super
complicated system with 1000features, because we only need
it to do this for this group ofpeople. And that's where the
success and that's where thosetraining wheels come into play
is to say, Okay, we have thesepieces that we know, and we're
going to grow into the rest ofthe pieces.
Brent Lathrop (36:12):
Yeah, exactly.
That's a good point, too.
Because, you know, using theanalogy before, you know,
everybody wants a Tesla, right,but can't afford it. If you
don't have a Tesla budget, youcan, you're gonna go out and you
want electric vehicle, but yougot you gotta leave, or you get
a bolt or, you know, the Chevyone. So yeah, it's Don't Don't
(36:33):
try to overcomplicate it if youdon't need to.
Joey Strawn (36:37):
I mean, Brent, one of the things that they say go
back to the processes, becausethis is, you know, this, we want
the industrial market orlisteners to be able to take
something away from these in theshop floor segments. And one of
the things that we've talkedabout is mapping those
processes. Do you have any tips,like whenever someone, you're
working with a client, you'relike, Okay, well, we need to map
these out, we need to get thisdocumented. And they're like,
(37:00):
well, we don't have any of that.
Like, do you have any tips? Arethere tools that you prefer? Is
there is it a write up? Is thata sketch? Like? How do you get
people to think about what theyneed to document those processes
to think about that,
Unknown (37:14):
Um, I guess there's a thing that don't overcomplicate
it, usually, I just use the worddoc, to go through those steps
initially. And then I'll usescreenshots to put in, you know,
the screen that the person isgoing to be using or the button,
right, they're going to clickon, you know, being able to use
(37:35):
something like preview and Macor, you know, Microsoft Paint,
if you have Microsoft Paint, youfill a circle around the button,
or, you know, something simplelike that. Or if you have a
designer, you can have a designor just, you know, mark off
where that button is going to beor the location that you're in
go the next step, you know, thatstuff. You know, sometimes I'll
do I kind of alluded to itearlier, I'll do a screen share,
(37:58):
capture video that helps out inaddition to the documentation.
And there's, you know,QuickTime, there's all kinds of
different screen recordingsoftware that you can use, I
don't really use anyone,specifically, just depending
when you know what I need to dofor that specific screencast.
Joey Strawn (38:17):
Just making sure that it's easy and easy to
follow.
Brent Lathrop (38:22):
Yep. Yep. And then you could also, you know,
search for documentation tools,potentially find something like
that. I've done that in the pastas well. So there hasn't been
just one. One process for that,that fits everything that I've
done in the past. And then, asfar as other tips is in, we
(38:46):
already already talked aboutkeeping it simple
implementation, you don't justjump right in, make sure you
have those meetings having thosediscussions. Yeah. And then, you
know, once, I think one thingthat that would be important to,
to note is to have a ambassadorat the company that is kind of
like that, the one that makesthe decisions on things. Because
(39:07):
if you have too many peoplegetting in there and changing
processes, changing the way theway it works, I've seen that in
the past, though, they'll comein and if they have admin
access, so they'll change thingsthe way they want it to be, but
they don't think about the otherparts of the business. And then
I'll get an email, you know, acouple days later, like, hey,
this isn't working anymore. AndI go in there, and it's good.
(39:29):
You know, it's because you know,Bobby or whoever it was, it went
in there and made his changes.
So making sure that that youguys are communicating
internally, when you're whenyou're making those changes and
implementations and also justhaving that one person
internally that can kind of makethat decision, like, Okay, we
need to do this. But let's seewhat the effects are for
everybody else, and then createa process for that and again,
(39:50):
document it to make sure thatpeople know that that process
has been implemented or thatchange to your system has been
made.
Nels Jensen (39:59):
Yeah, yeah.
Training is complicated, there'salways going to have to be
follow up, there's gonna have tobe side by side, sharing how to
use best practices, remedialtraining, right? But moving the
pack, you don't need to covereverything with everybody just
you get the, you know, you youpraise the early adopters and
give them what they need and thepack tends to follow. Right. So
how about tips for buying? Iwould assume, and I shouldn't
(40:23):
assume but I do that if you'veclearly identified benefits of
the CRM, you're also showing howit helps sales people, right?
What's, what's in it for them?
Right, what What tips do youhave for for getting buy in for
adoption and implementation?
Joey Strawn (40:43):
Yeah, you mentioned the ambassador, and I would
imagine like finding that personwould be would be key. But you
know, how? I guess like, what,what hurdles? Have you seen
people run into against, like, Ineed a system like this, but
they just they don't they don'tthink it's important? Or like
finding, finding?
Brent Lathrop (41:03):
Yeah, trying trying to find that common
ground for everybody to want touse it now is, is that kind of
what you're, you're getting at?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's gonnabe some that one and some that
don't. Yeah, that's, that'sactually a good point, too.
Because you're, you're having tobe a politician at that point in
trying to come in and makingsure that everybody's needs are
(41:23):
met. And I think it's just beingoverly communicative about it.
And upfront, you know, don't tryto hide anything, don't try to
have the ball, just come in andsay, This is what we're doing,
you know, if you have issues orif you have any trepidations
about getting into this, orconcerns, you know, come to me,
(41:47):
and we can talk this throughbecause overall, this CRM is
beneficial for the company, it'sso it's gonna be beneficial for
you, especially as a sales rep.
You know, if you want to getthese get credit for all the
work that you do, this is whereit's going to be, you know, it's
(42:07):
not like be like a piece ofpaper or a spreadsheet. You have
proof, you know, when it comesto the end of the year and your,
your review or if you're youknow, relying on the name is
escaping me right now. Your yourpaycheck.
Nels Jensen (42:24):
Your spreadsheets, billing,
Unknown (42:26):
Yeah, things, your money, your money, you're
getting paid. Right. Exactly. Soyeah. So when you're getting
you're getting paid for your,for your work that you're doing.
You have proof right therematters.
Nels Jensen (42:40):
Yeah, exactly. But the proof is right, the outcome,
right? That what is the outputof the CRM could tell you that
product A tends to be go throughthis type of decision maker
versus product B devs, to youknow, have a drop off point, x
or y, really helping the salespeople use their time more
(43:01):
efficiently, help them get morealigned with marketing, you
know, I think the the sellinghas to be around what's in it
for them. Right?
Joey Strawn (43:09):
It's and I do. And I think that's an important
narrative. As you know, wetalked about this early, one of
the biggest benefits, especiallyfor a b2b company, in industrial
companies, specifically is thealignment and communication
between what the sales team isdoing, and what the marketing
team is doing. And so that way,you have good leads that are
being vetted and qualifiedcoming into this system. And
(43:30):
then once they're in the system,there is a streamlined and
processed way that those leadsare engaged with that is shown
to drive revenue. Like the wholepoint of this is to streamline
and make everybody's jobs alittle bit easier, and get the
revenue in the books faster. Andso you know, as I've heard, you
explained it, Brendon, kind of,I want to put all the pieces
(43:52):
together that we've talked abouthere with you is that if you're
taking the time to understandyour market, so you know the
types of relationships and thejourneys that your customers are
going to be going on. And youunderstand the needs of your
sales team and the you know, thetypes of communications they
need, you should be able topiece a tool together. And then
(44:14):
once you have that tool inplace, having your understanding
your internal processes to thepoint where you can map them out
and train everybody on them willbe key to keeping things
streamlined. So then it's just amatter of using the tools that
they're how they're meant to beused for you. So you can tweak
(44:36):
and benefit and grow andoptimize along the way. Yeah,
like, kind of like stringing itall together to say, Listen,
this is a big, you know, theseare big deals. These are big
projects. These are big, scarytools sometimes, but the reality
is, is that if you understandwhy you're using them and
understand what you need to getout of them, then you can really
(44:59):
find that through line to getyou to the results pretty
quickly,
Brent Lathrop (45:03):
I think you made a good point there with no big
scary tools, and sometimes theyare for some people, but you
don't grow without pushingyourself a little bit. And I
think, you know, kind of talkingthrough that honest conversation
that I mentioned before justhaving, like, be honest with
(45:23):
your team, like, yeah, this,this might be tough up front, to
get into this and learn some ofthese new workflows, you know,
it's hard to teach a dog newtricks an old dog new tricks,
sometimes he's not the same. Butyou know, once once you get this
in there, you know, you're goingto we talked about, you know,
seeing your sales, you're goingto be able to your nails, you
alluded to this, see the statsbehind your sales, you know,
(45:45):
how, what's your rate of close,how long it's taken to get
through your sales funnel,you're going to be able to see
all those numbers, it's going tohelp fine tune you as a
salesperson, and help you makemore money because you're going
to be spending time on theproper sales in that pipeline,
instead of, you know, runningdown this trail over here,
because it's a it's a big, shinyobject, but you know, that your
(46:09):
chance of closing that one ismuch, much less. Hmm.
Joey Strawn (46:16):
Wow. Well, that was very helpful. Uh, that that
really does feel like a giftthat you just gave everybody.
Today to wrap out this year of2021. I mean, Nelson, are there
any final questions that youwant to? You want to ask Brent,
while we have him here before wegive deputy dev his leave?
Nels Jensen (46:36):
No, I think he's articulated the, the benefits
and the challenges very well.
And the opportunity, rightgrowth. That's, that's so true.
Growth is not easy, or we'd allbe growing constantly, right?
Yeah, yes, this, this is achallenge to an organization.
But the benefits, the long termsustainable benefits are huge.
(46:57):
For a lot of industrialcompanies. Absolutely. Yeah.
Especially with the crazyelongated buying cycle we have,
there's so much more data you'regoing to get about where people
drop off and what ranges closeand what what revenue, you know,
potential isn't there, it's justthat, you know, you get so much
more data during the buyerjourney.
Unknown (47:22):
Yeah, and you can even put some, going back to talking
about processes, you can evenput some something in your sales
opportunity pipeline, to where,if it is that longer sales
cycle, and you know, somebodyhas buying interest, but they're
not going to buy for six months.
Instead of putting that on apost it note somewhere and
putting it in a drawer.
Joey Strawn (47:41):
Or emailing a reminder in your email
Unknown (47:45):
Yeah, or task lists or something like that, you have an
ecosystem that that does thatfor you, that you can put a
state step in that process. Andwe've done it in the past,
because we see, we see that,especially in industrial there,
there's a long buying cycle. Andif they go off the path of that
normal buying cycle, and I sayI'm going to buy but I'm going
(48:06):
to buy in six months, you putthem into that that part of the
funnel, and then, you know, insix months are reminded that,
hey, I need to contact this guy.
And so he doesn't go to thecompetitor. And you know, when
he comes back, and is interestedagain.
Joey Strawn (48:20):
I, I can't I can't, there are so many ways that you
can automate. And then we talkedabout automation as a big
benefit in the first half ofthis. And there are so many
ways. And again, I'm gonna sayit again, we're gonna have to
have you back next year to talkeven more about this, because
figuring out how the CRM alignswith the customer journey and
(48:42):
then how to automate steps andthat to increase or decrease the
velocity of those sales is ahuge benefit that most
industrials that we work witharen't even considering. And so
there may be to your point, ifthe six months I'm going to buy
in six months, well, maybe wefind out that if four months, if
we send them an email of areminder, 90% of the time, it
(49:03):
leads to a conversion, you know,30 days faster. That's very
important that and so that issomething that is definitely
worthy of an entire episode ofexploration in my mind. So,
Brent, thank you as always, forbeing here. We're gonna have to
have you back on more and moreepisodes so we can keep so
picking your brain.
Unknown (49:23):
So January 1, but on my calendar.
Joey Strawn (49:25):
Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, it'd be we'll be
right there. First episode ofthe yes, you better believe it.
Oh, and you better believelisteners to industrial Marketer
Podcast that we will be back in2022. We are coming with all new
episodes with all new topicswith all new guests. And it's
going to be spectacular. So ifyou're not subscribed, what are
(49:48):
you doing? It's the time of yearof giving, give subscription,
and we'll give you free podcastepisodes. It's just that simple.
The holiday season we're fillingourselves with joy filling
ourselves With knowledge and wewant you to be along for the
ride so if you haven't alreadygone to industrial marketer calm
and filled yourself with theknowledge and the joy and the
good tidings of education aboutindustrial marketing, then go
(50:12):
over there and do it. It will bethings you can give send them to
your relatives for theirChristmas gifts, they're going
to love them. Articles arespectacular, but I cannot thank
you guys enough. This has been afantastic year of the industrial
Marketer Podcast and I am sovery excited to go into next
year and learn more now with youby my side as we ride on this
(50:33):
industrial marketer journeytogether
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of
the industrial Marketer Podcastyour place for the tips, tech
trends and tactics forindustrials who care about
driving leads to theircompanies. I'm one of your
hosts. My name is Joey, a humbleindustrial marketer advocate.
And I, as always enjoined by mycohort, my friends, Nels on the
(00:23):
shelf, Jensen, how are you, myman, it's seasonal time we're
able to read it out and actuallyput you around places
Nels Jensen (00:32):
It is it's good to get out of the dark places and
see the light.
Joey Strawn (00:37):
Exactly. Well, Nelson on the shelf. The thing
that I am so excited about isit's that holiday time of year,
it's the Yule tide of it all.
And we are here to wrap up notonly just our month on
industrial b2b sales and howthey intersect with marketing in
the digital spheres. Buthonestly, we're here to wrap up
(00:57):
our entire first year of theindustrial marketer first.
Right? i This has been such afun and joyful blessing this
year, Nelson, this is the lastepisode that's gonna go live in
this calendar year. That's notto say we don't have a bunch
more stuff planned. But youknow, the end of the calendar
(01:17):
year, this has been such a funride this year now.
Nels Jensen (01:22):
It is it is. And in a couple of minutes. Speaking of
the holiday season, we'll get tomy own personal epiphany about
industrial.
Joey Strawn (01:34):
Ooh, see, I like that kind of like, Don't unwrap
until Christmas, except peoplewill get to unwrap it on this
episode, which is so exciting.
So here's the thing we buriedthe lede. It's in the title of
the episode, so people know. Butnow we decided to wrap up this
year's conversation by sort oftying some strands together from
conversations we started earlierthis year. We had a very special
(01:57):
guest on early in the season.
His name was deputy Dev. And hewas Brent and he came and talked
to us about the importance ofCRM. When it came to industrials
and b2b as well now, we promiseda follow up episode on how
people can actually implementthose CRMs and work with them
(02:20):
and make stuff happen them. Andhere's the gift of the season
now. This is that episode isexciting. It is.
Nels Jensen (02:29):
That's right, let's get into the granular benefits
of CRMs. And why they'reespecially useful for
industrials, that's sort oftipping off my personal
epiphany. But yeah, so you know,this is a, this is really good,
hearty industrial talk.
Joey Strawn (02:51):
Yes, and it is, and we're gonna get nerdy, we're
gonna get geeky. And but what Ihope is that people dealing with
this stuff on a day in and dayout basis, or if you're
listening to this, because youhave to make a budgetary
decision around one of thesetools, and you're not sure where
they fit into the scope. I'mglad that you're here. And we're
going to dive in now, one of thethings that I did want to start
(03:13):
with is just a gentle reminder,because as much as I'd love to
think that everybody now haslistened to every single episode
of the industrial MarketerPodcast, they may have missed
one or two. And so I'm going toredefine what a CRM is for
people just in case they missedthe first part. So a CRM when
we're talking about it, in thisregard, we're talking about a
(03:35):
customer or a clientrelationship management or a
manager system. So this is a setof tools and this is a system or
a technology used for managingrelationships and interactions
with your current and andpotential, you know, your
marketing customers with thegoal of improving those
relationships, whether that'smaking sure that you have
(03:56):
positive, consistent ongoingcommunications with them,
whether it's updating a sale orupdating a contract or updating
a renewal or a vendorrelationship, but it's making
sure that you are able to haveall of the strands moving and
all of the plates spinning tokeep your relationships as
healthy as possible between yourcurrent customers and any people
(04:19):
that you hope to do businesswith in the future. Now, did I
get that
Nels Jensen (04:24):
I get that pretty good. Yeah. And and I also would
just like to touch on one thingthat it is not, you know, please
yeah, so So technology platformsin the industrial sector, are
just super valuable whenimplemented correctly, right.
The the management executionsystem mes does a great job of
helping you with your qualityand processes. You know, you
(04:46):
open up the hood, you look atyour operations ERPs great job
with resources, helping you frominventory to scheduling
whatever, but the customerrelation management tool is not
a sales manager tool to check upand Make sure people are doing X
number of cold calls that it isnot an inspection tool. It is
not an evaluation at all. Butone of the one of the tough
(05:09):
things, there are a lot of CRMsthat have been bought and
installed and are beingleveraged. And one of the
reasons is the disconnect withthe salespeople where they may
not see value in inputting thestatus. So one of the things
we're going to talk about is,what is the sales job you need
to do with your salespeople? Tounderstand the value in the
CRMs? And how it positions themto be more efficient and do
(05:32):
better work? And key thing ofall? What's their goal of a CRM,
raise revenue, right, and
Joey Strawn (05:37):
Raise revenue and in efficiency, like, yeah,
fastest way to get to newrevenue, from existing
relationships or from exertduring the relationships that
you have. And I now I'm so happythat you brought that up,
because you know, what is a CRM,we've talked a little bit about
that in our last episode, butit's always a good reminder.
(06:00):
Because if you have the wrongconcept in your head, and if
we're talking about you know,personalizing, or you know,
automating some things withinthe CRM, and you're thinking
email program, or God forbid,ERP system, that's a, that's a
much, much, much differentprocess, what we're diving into,
and it's because we're gonnasay, CRM a lot. And that's
(06:22):
because it's hard to say,customer slash client
relationship management system.
And also, we know that there areabout 1,000,000,002 as of 2021.
Now, tools that call themselvesCRM. So if you're curious what
we mean when we say a CRM, orlike what it means as a tool,
like, what would you buy? Thisis like a Salesforce or a
(06:45):
nutshell, HubSpot has a CRMbuilt into it. NetSuite Monday,
CRM, Zoho has one. So any toollike that, anything that's
reminding you When renewals arewhen client birthdays are when
it's keeping a catalogue of theemails and the calls and the
(07:05):
documents and those elements ofthe sales and client vendor
relationship? That's the toolset that we're talking about in
this in this episode, when we'retalking about setting those up
later when we talk with Brent,about integrating those systems
with your other tech stack andthe importance of finding the
(07:26):
right one? Because I mean, now,I have my answer to this. But we
get asked this all the time,like well, what's the best CRM?
I know my answer now, but whatdo you say to someone?
Nels Jensen (07:41):
I'd say it's, it's the one that your sales teams
gonna use buy into?
Joey Strawn (07:47):
Okay, that's a better answer than what I was
gonna say. I like that quite abit.
Nels Jensen (07:53):
Yeah, you guys will use
Joey Strawn (07:55):
The best CRM is the one the salesman will agree to
use. But yes, because it's gonnadepend. I hate that. The old
marketing speak answer? Well, itdepends. It depends.
Nels Jensen (08:05):
Yeah. I was gonna say it depends, yeah.
Joey Strawn (08:08):
I thought that's my answer is it's gonna depend on a
couple of factors like size ofsales team, length of sales
process, you know, those typesof things. But honestly, your
answer of the one thesalespeople will use is way
better.
Nels Jensen (08:22):
Yeah. So, you know, what I wondered. It's like,
there's so many SaaS platformsthat are really narrow
verticals, you know, theirtechnology and software is
amazing. And I, you know, Ialways wondered, how come there
aren't CRM specifically forindustrials? And the answer is
because you can make almost anyof these CRMs work for the
industrial process. And myepiphany was that, you know, the
(08:47):
elongated buying cycle formanufacturing and industrials,
the the nonlinear nature of it,the so many potential touch
points in there actually playsto the strength of CRMs. It
gives you more opportunities fortouch points, and it gives you
more opportunities to put indata and I know it can be kind
(09:09):
of a pain, but the more data youinput into the CRM, the more
insights the more actionableinsights you'll be able to pull
out once you have somesubstantive data in there about
not just closed rates, but whata drop off points right are,
what are the two or threeactions on your lead scoring
that add up to Hey, they'reready to buy, you know, the the
(09:29):
Elon gated buying cycle is agreat reason to use a CRM,
right? You can't you can't youneed to be in touch with these
folks and know where they areand know what they have done.
And what haven't they done. Sothis the long the elongated
buying process to me is a greatargument for making sure your
(09:51):
CRM is leveraged as best as itcould.
Joey Strawn (09:54):
I I couldn't agree more and I love that you tied
that together with the itdepends and because that is
really the heart of in thisscenario, when we say it depends
on the toolset. That's what wemean is that you know, the
number of salespeople that youhave spread over the number of
states or regions or territoriesthat you have them laid across.
(10:17):
That makes a difference betweenwhether you need an enterprise
system like a Salesforce tool,or you could get by with
something that's cheaper andmore based around small teams
like a HubSpot or a nutshell,you know, the answer of what is
the best one is going to be letme sit down with you and learn
your scenario. And then therewill be a best one for you.
(10:38):
Because now to your point is allratcheting up and ratcheting
down the volume and theintensity of the activities. And
we're talking the things thatmake a huge difference. With
CRMs. The you know, you talk tomen, you mentioned earlier that
it does change revenue. Oh man,I wanted to find I had a stat
here is that we, there was astudy that was done, that
(11:02):
marketing teams who have accessto a company wide CRM, deliver
three times more revenue thanmarketing teams that are acting
without a centralized, you know,collection of customer data. You
know, the successful CRMtemplate implementations boost
revenue, on average, 41% persalesperson, because the sales
(11:25):
processes that are beingsystemized, automated, and then,
like consistently rolled outacross a sales team are benefits
that if you have like the bestsales guy in the world, and
you've built an entireorganization, and entire revenue
book off the back of you know,this guy and his team's efforts.
(11:48):
That's fantastic. That isfantastic. But the problem is
when that guy goes away hisenergy level, his processes, his
little book, his Little RedBook, sales tip,
Nels Jensen (11:59):
All his all his spreadsheets, they go away as
well. So door, right?
Joey Strawn (12:05):
If there's a documented process that a tool
can then keep in, you know, inflow for you. So you and your
team aren't trying to keep 17spec plates spinning for 45
different contracts at the sametime, that's going to take a lot
of the well slipping throughthat, well, those sales slipped
(12:25):
through the cracks. Oh, we'llnever know how many sales or how
much revenue we lost last year,because we didn't X, Y or Z.
Well, now you can know how muchrevenue you're losing. And you
can stop and siphon those holes,like that's what a CRM is
really, really good about, andsetting up those processes,
making sure that your salescycle and now this is where I
(12:47):
wanted to get back to what youwere talking about is the
benefits of it. And why b2b andb2c used it differently is it's
the same set of tools, Kroger isgoing to use Salesforce just
like a GE for a GE or you know,a an apple is going to use one,
but they're going to use it indifferent ways. Because and I'll
(13:09):
start with what you said, thesales cycle is way different.
You may be dealing with thedifference between a sales cycle
of a guy finds out about a salereaches researchers in one day,
and then has a purchasedecision. The third day after
that. Most b2b is and people arenodding their heads are already
are thinking 18 months salescycle. Yeah, how do you manage
(13:33):
30 contacts across an 18 monthsales cycle that start at
different phases of the year?
Nels Jensen (13:39):
And the possibility that okay, key contact,
whatever, maybe it's a persona,maybe it's the engineering
person, maybe it's thepurchasing person, whatever, you
haven't heard from them in acertain period of time, let's
just say 60 days, whatever. Hey,drop in the reminder, email,
(14:00):
Hey, what else? Can we help youthe demo, whatever, you know,
you may go back months from nowand find out that you know what
the people who responded tothose, hey, how you been 60
days, emails turn out to be 40%better, more likely to close
than the people who don't. Soall of a sudden, okay, here's a
here's a sort of magic point inthe process that you know, you
(14:20):
can reliably count on to movepeople along in the funnel,
right? That right you can createit's there's, there's a benefit
in creating drop off points foryour prospects as well, right,
you're not going to waste theirtime anymore or your own time
anymore. Right?
Joey Strawn (14:37):
And even mapping out like you were saying,
mapping out what those touchpoints look like because, right
and in a lot of industries, whatthey were saying, what's the old
adage nails is like, if they seeyou seven times, they'll
remember you so it's like okay,well for juicy fruit or gum. We
need to hit them with abillboard and a radio ad and a
(14:58):
magazine ad and then by the timeThey've hit their lunch break at
work, they've seen a seventimes, I would love it if b2b
were that simple, but we'retalking, you may have two
contacts, who need to hit 40 or50 times across the span of two
months for that sale to truly,truly take hold. And that is a
different level of managementand a different level of
(15:21):
assisted technologicaladvancement. Let's say that you
could implement if you know whatthose touch points are, and can
map them across your sales teamas a whole.
Nels Jensen (15:32):
We'll talk with right we'll talk with Brent
about that about the the mappingof your own process and make it
real visual. And that's andthat's where you guys can get
together with the sales andmarketing you can do
collaborative lead scoring andfigure out really Hey, is what
are the truly valuable actionsthat people are taking? And how
to get that into your system,yeah.
Joey Strawn (15:53):
Exactly. I mean, one of the hugest benefits of
any of any CRM, any tech stack,anything we talk about in a,
especially on this show, isgoing to be the reporting
ability and the data pulling offof it. Now, I don't want to say
and now this is something that,that you and I talked about when
we're planning these shows is wedon't want it to sound like it's
all opportunities, and kittensand roses. Because as with any
(16:18):
reality, as with any longstanding company and processing,
these, there will be hurdles,that anybody b2b or b2c are
running run across when tryingto change any sort of techstack,
or any sort of process orimplement a CRM like this. And
so we want to do at leastidentify that we know there are
a few challenges and how to getaround those mean, one is just
(16:42):
going to be time, you know, anynew system, whether it's you're
switching from a Mac to a PC, oryou're switching from TurboTax
to using a different sort ofsoftware, whatever it may be,
there's going to be a learningcurve. And a software that is
designed to help a salesprocess, there could be a huge
(17:04):
learning curve for people whohave just have the natural
processes ingrained in them. SoI would say that's one of the
biggest challenges right off thebat analysis that just that that
time to learn and implement. Imean, I, anything you want to
add to that are there. So youwant to bring up?
Nels Jensen (17:22):
Right, so so there's no such thing as a
singular training session.
Right? Right, you're gonna traina group, you're gonna, you're
gonna train a group of people onanything, especially a
technology platform, you'regonna have training, then that's
going to be followed by side byside, help one on ones, you're
going to have follow uptraining, you're going to have
session to share best practicesand tips from the early
(17:43):
adopters, you're going to haveeventually remedial training for
the, you know, laggards, youknow, there, we've all
experienced training that didn'twork, right. Training is in
itself a five or six stepprocess. So dedicate yourself to
properly training with CRMs.
It's super important. We've allbeen to sessions where we sat
(18:06):
through for hours, and thefollowing Monday, somebody said,
Hey, how do I do that? Again?
You know, so tree trading, youknow, do not underestimate the
time and, and effort that goesinto the treasure, but also did
I tell him that don'tunderestimate the payoff, right?
You get them. And if the fastfollowers reward them, recognize
them, and the pack will follow,but yet drowning, and the time
(18:29):
is essential.
Joey Strawn (18:32):
And speaking of that pack, like getting that buy
in, if you have like if oneadvocate is great, but if you
have a team of people that arelike we're gonna make this work,
that's that's just great buy in,I would say one of the last
hurdles, and we've kind ofmentioned this already in the
episode is make sure that theyhave those processes understood
the idea of oh, well, we knowwhat it takes. In general, I
(18:54):
guess ideas that's not specificenough is, you know, we, when
we're talking about mapping itout, we mean, on paper, okay,
the first thing they do is theyget a phone call from so and so
about these things. And thenusually, we see at work if we,
you know, have a face to facemeeting within the first month.
And those are the phases of thissales process that you need to
(19:17):
map out. And it needs to be onpaper.
Nels Jensen (19:19):
Yeah, you can, yeah, you need to document it.
And Brent will talk a lot moreabout this, but you can, you
know, you also want to avoidfriction, because some people on
your team may do it one way andother people may do it another
but the CRM, you know, you know,there, it's gonna rely on
certain standards and standardways of doing things. And that's
(19:42):
very important, again, thecommunicate the big picture, why
we're doing this, why theoutcomes matter, and how
they're, you know, in many casesare no shortcuts to getting the
data into the system. You know,it's all about the actionable
insights. And the more data thatgoes in and the cleaner that it
goes in, the more accurate Willinside she'll emerge with.
Joey Strawn (20:02):
I agree and and to be in to be quite honest and to
wrap this up with a little bow,a holiday bow, if you will,
before we go and on down on theshop floor. And see what Brent
has to say is that that isreally where a lot of the
benefits from this come in. Iknow we've harped on this a lot.
And you could be saying, well,Joey, of course, we would love
to have something like that. Butwe always get shut down. And
(20:24):
it's just an uphill battle andno one's gonna use it. And it's
really probably at the end ofthe day not worth it. And I
would always err on the side ofit is going to be worth it. It
may be an uphill climb. But Iknow that I promise you the
automations that you can find inthe efficiencies that you can
iron out without losing dealsfalling through the cracks that
(20:46):
have always been there. Theirreporting ability to pull out
what works at which stages ofthe funnel, and where different
elements can be added in toincrease revenue or increase
contract values. Maybe, maybeyou could find ways to increase
the velocity to close there justunderstanding the data around
(21:09):
what happens when money iscoming into the company is
invaluable. And honestly, andhere's the secret everybody
listening to this on the salesside, or on the marketing side,
or on the C suite side. Here's ahuge secret. Don't tell anybody
about this. But here's a hugebenefit of getting a CRM and
taking the time to map all ofthis stuff out. It forces your
(21:31):
marketing and sales teams towork together and understand
what the other side is doingmore, so you can make more money
faster. Don't tell anybodybecause that's a huge secret. i
Now, are you going to keep yourmouth shut? I love to help
brands. I love it. Well, we'llsee if Brandon
Nels Jensen (21:52):
He'll be surprised to hear that. Yeah,
Joey Strawn (21:55):
Exactly. So that's what I would say is is the juice
in this case is worth thesqueeze. Brent is going to get
so much more into detail abouthow it works and things he has
seen companies run up against inways to get around that but Nels
before we wrap up this thisfirst segment, is there anything
more you want to say about thejoys of the benefits of CRS?
Nels Jensen (22:19):
You know, I think one one other thing it too is,
you know, this helps turnassumptions into knowledge or
disprove assumptions, right? Orsomebody who just says, Hey,
Facebook's the only way for usto go. In the end, you'll have a
good idea of how many actualdeals did you close that
originated with Facebook? Youknow, not a great example. But
(22:39):
you know, yeah, the CRMs helpturn assumptions into knowledge.
And that's possible.
Joey Strawn (22:44):
And I I love that.
And another thing that helpsturn assumptions into knowledge
is Deputy Dev and Brent on theshop floor. So now, let's head
on down there for the last timethis year. And head on down to
the shop floor suffer some realactionable advice from deputy
dev Brent. Welcome back Nels. Wehave taken the long journey down
(23:10):
to the shop floor. And aspromised, this is our holiday
episodes right around theholiday season. I have a gift
for everyone else would you liketo help me unwrap this gift?
Nels Jensen (23:24):
Yes, the gift that never stops giving to
Joey Strawn (23:28):
The gift that never stops giving. As promised
everybody we have brought BrentLathrop, Deputy dev back to the
industrial Marketer Podcastearlier. We had John earlier in
the season Brent and we promisedto bring you back for CRM talk
specifics. Brent, welcome backto the show.
Brent Lathrop (23:50):
Well, thank you, um, have lofty expectations
being labeled a gift now. Sowe'll see how this goes if I can
live up to those expectationsnow.
Joey Strawn (24:00):
I was very surprised that you let me put
you in a box and actually wrapyou up considering this as an
audio medium, but you went withit and I was so happy. So that
was a gift to me. But you andyour knowledge and your
wonderful brain Brent are thegift to the industrial marketer
listeners. Nelson, I have justspent a handful of minutes
(24:23):
talking about what CRMs are, youknow, so people know that their
customer relationship tools, andsort of some scenarios in which
you might want to think aboutusing them and how they differ
from b2b and b2c usage. But wewanted to get you here because
you're you deal with this stufffor clients day in and day out.
(24:44):
And I know specifically, becauseI've worked with you that you
dealt with CRM implementationand getting companies and
clients that may not have beenusing it before using it in a
way that's beneficial. So yourknowledge is just going to be
really key to putting This intouse for some of our listeners.
Brent Lathrop (25:02):
I hope so
Joey Strawn (25:03):
So I'm really excited that you're here. So
just start off, you know, whenyou're training a client like,
let's, we've got the buy in forthe CRM, we've already sold
them, they think, oh, we shouldhave this or in a likely
scenario, I know yours that theyalready have it, but just kind
of aren't using it. Where do youstart with clients that need to
(25:24):
need help getting trained onsomething like this, or need
help setting something like thisup? Like where? Where do you
kind of start with them andgetting their headspace in the
right place?
Brent Lathrop (25:33):
Well, first, it's deciding what platform to use.
Salesforce might be the big nameand the cool the Tesla out
there, right. But not everybodyneeds or can afford a Tesla.
Right? Right. It's, it's theit's the big name. And sometimes
that's overkill for especiallyif it's a company that's just
starting in the CRM business, itcan be overwhelming, because
(25:55):
there are so many differentoptions out there these days.
But just figuring out what youneed from a CRM, if it's just
something simply to bring allyour contacts and all your
clients into, you know, a clientrelationship management tool,
just so you can log notes, whenyou're calling them, you know,
(26:15):
for a smaller company, thatmight be good, a small
Salesforce of one or two, youdon't need something like
Salesforce. You know, once youonce you start getting into a
bigger team of sales sales team,you might need something like a
Salesforce or HubSpot orsomething with a little bit more
power. And I'm through it.
Right. Right. So yeah, the firstthing is, is figuring out what
(26:36):
your business needs are, andfiguring out which tool to use.
Because if you go intosomething, and you start getting
down, you know going down thatthat trail, figure out that you
don't need that or it's not afit for you, then then you've
wasted your time. Yeah, yeah.
Joey Strawn (26:56):
Or money. I mean, Salesforce is not cheap. So you
could be wasting a handful ofmoney there, too. i Yeah, I
agree. I mean, even in the firstsegment, we talked a little bit,
you know, HubSpot has a CRM now.
You see ads for places likemonday.com, they have their has
a CRM, like there are optionsout there. So you know, Zoho is
(27:17):
something
Brent Lathrop (27:20):
Yeah. So it was like, Yeah, everyone, now they
have a suite of tools. And I'veseen a couple of our clients go
that route as well. That it'snot as robust. But if you're
just dipping your toe and tryingto see if it's something that
you want to get into, you coulduse that for a couple years. And
then once that, that you outgrowthat, that system, then you can
(27:40):
jump to something more like aHubSpot or Salesforce, it's a
that's a little more cost to it,but has more patrols and more
power.
Nels Jensen (27:48):
Right. So so you've got somebody on board, you've
got a system in mind, then it'stime to actually get the
training scheduled and getrolling with with the, you know,
eventual implementation. Sowhere do you start with the
training.
Brent Lathrop (28:03):
Um, usually, I like to document that we'll have
a meeting with our client. Andwe'll we'll go through that
process before we're even setup. So we're going in, we're
setting it up. And then we'rekind of documenting that
process. So not only the peoplethat are currently at the
company, when we have thattraining, because we'll
eventually have a trainingmeeting and going over, you
(28:24):
know, how you put somebody intoa lead and convert them into,
you know, depending on thesystem and opportunity or a deal
or whatever it is. So, so wecould document that. So if
somebody comes and is hired, ayear later, you can give them
that documentation as a company.
And then they'll know theprocesses that you have as a
company and they can adhere toyour the workflows and the
(28:46):
vernacular and the way you namethings, you know, stuff like
that.
Joey Strawn (28:52):
I want to keep I want to key in on that really
quick, Brent, because youmentioned processes, and that
something that we talked aboutearlier in the episode is that
understanding what thoseprocesses are, and mapping them
out can be critically important.
And what I'm hearing you say isthat, that you should go so far
as to actually document orflowchart what those processes
look like. So everybody can beon the same page. That's Is that
(29:16):
what you're saying?
Brent Lathrop (29:19):
Oh, absolutely, yeah, you know, people are
visual, most people are visualtoo. So being able to see that
documentation and going in thereand seeing you know, seeing the
buttons that need to be clickedor right, you know, the the
process going from that, thatyou know, if it's a lead that
comes in and you're going fromfrom lead to opportunity, like
(29:42):
seeing those steps is verybeneficial for people when
they're first starting insteadof kind of telling them what to
do walking, walking through itwith them one time over the
phone or you know, over zoom orsomething like that, and then
forgetting it taking theirnotes, you know, people taking
their notes beneficial, but ifthey have their own notes, and
(30:03):
they have a piece ofdocumentation to go with it is
definitely useful
Joey Strawn (30:08):
Or you make it you know, like get get futuristic
with it, make it a little video,a screen share.
Brent Lathrop (30:14):
I've done that as well, yeah,
Joey Strawn (30:15):
Walk them through the different elements, because
you know what, what I so what Ihear you say Brett is, it's
probably not a great idea for acompany to drop, you know,
$400,000 on Salesforce, justimplement it and set it up and
then just tell their salesmenuse it with no, with no
direction and no guide and nohelp. It's just, you know, get
(30:36):
in there and they'll figure itout. Right, everything is super
easy in all CRMs eyes, what Ithat that's not what I hear you
saying?
Brent Lathrop (30:45):
Correct? Yeah, we've dealt with a couple of
several companies that come in,and like, our sales team doesn't
use our Salesforce anymore. Andthat's one of the reasons why
they don't have those processesset beforehand. And it fails.
And I think it's, you know, 60,or 70% of companies fail with
their CRM implementations,because they don't do things
(31:07):
like that. They don't come inand they don't set themselves up
for success. And then, you know,a year later when their sales
reps aren't using it, becausethey put in like 30 different
steps for the process, insteadof simplifying it upfront. It
just, it's bloated, and theydon't, they don't think about
that upfront. So it's definitelysomething to think about before
(31:27):
you get into that game.
Nels Jensen (31:29):
Yeah, but you know, change is hard. And I'm going to
assume that a lot of the timethis is the process that
leverages the CRM the most isdifferent than the current sales
process, or sales and marketinghandoff. And so how important is
it to be able to adapt the CRM alittle bit to the current
(31:52):
operation? Or is it? No, wereally need to leverage the CRM
to make it work, we really needto go through a change
management process.
Brent Lathrop (32:03):
To be honest, I don't think about that part.
Nels Jensen (32:08):
But that's but that's the big, that's the big
hurdle. Right? Is that Yeah, youknow, if people aren't using it,
it means that the, the hurdleswere too big, you know, and that
they're, the company hasn't donea good enough job of changing
the culture to take advantage ofthe technology.
Brent Lathrop (32:26):
Correct. But usually that that is because
they have too many cooks in thekitchen, they come in, and they
try to do everything at once,right, stead of just, you know,
going into that, you know, likeusing training wheels, I guess,
you know, using a bike, youknow, if your three year old,
three year old, five year old,you're not going to throw your
kid on there and just startrunning out, send them out and
(32:48):
send them out into traffic andhope they...
Joey Strawn (32:49):
That's not how you do that. No, that's funny at the
ER that year.
Unknown (32:55):
So you got to use training wheels, right. And most
companies get excited about CRM,because it's a great tool, it
can be an absolutely amazingtool for managing your business,
manage your sales pipeline,right? Managing your customers,
but if you don't do it, right,you're gonna get hurt, or you're
gonna not do it right. Andyou're gonna regret it, you
know, later down the line,because you're not, you're not
(33:17):
setting yourself up for success.
Because if you're taking those,if you're taking those steps,
you should be able to accountfor simplicity, that will mean
you're referring to like anolder generation knows, right?
And that that has your trouble.
Yeah, that has trouble with withtechnology or, or that change,
(33:40):
right. So making sure that it'sit's simple to use up front. And
then once people get in there,and they're used to it, then you
add little things here and therethat make it more a little bit
more complex, and make it morepowerful, I guess you could say
as well.
Joey Strawn (33:57):
Well, and one thing that that I wanted, and this is
just for my experience, too, isin that question of well, where
does the decision come from?
Does the company adapt to thetool? Or does the tool adapt to
the company? Unfortunately, it'sthat old marketing answer of a
kinda depends. But one of thethings that I will say, that I
have seen over and over again,is that a lot of times there
(34:19):
isn't a singular company way tofor the tool to adapt to
everybody in the system, thecompany sort of does it
differently. And so most of thetime, it's the company having to
adapt to the tool, because thecompany has to adapt to
everybody doing it a singularway. And that just happens to be
(34:40):
manifested by, you know, theintroduction of that tool. So,
if I have seen it work, though,where if sales teams are really
in line and this happens a lotyou know Nels, you and I talked
about this in the first half ofthe episode with the difference
between a b2b CRM and a b2cusage A CRM, because the b2b
sales cycles, as we talked aboutare very different, they can be
(35:04):
a lot longer, they can involve alot more steps, which is where a
lot of the CRM customizationcomes in, very, very heavily
into play for b2b is, okay,well, we don't have, you know,
an awareness, interestconsideration and purchase. It's
not that straightforward andb2b, we have, you know,
awareness, research,consideration or research, part
(35:27):
two, you know, io, P Osubmission legal in, you know,
legal introduction, there's, youknow, 12 steps, and then the
journey takes 18 months. Sohaving a system, and that's
where brands, you know, I wantto bring it back to what you
were saying is identifying thecorrect system, and
understanding what yourprocesses look like, you can tie
(35:49):
those together to say, Okay,well, we don't need a super
complicated system with 1000features, because we only need
it to do this for this group ofpeople. And that's where the
success and that's where thosetraining wheels come into play
is to say, Okay, we have thesepieces that we know, and we're
going to grow into the rest ofthe pieces.
Brent Lathrop (36:12):
Yeah, exactly.
That's a good point, too.
Because, you know, using theanalogy before, you know,
everybody wants a Tesla, right,but can't afford it. If you
don't have a Tesla budget, youcan, you're gonna go out and you
want electric vehicle, but yougot you gotta leave, or you get
a bolt or, you know, the Chevyone. So yeah, it's Don't Don't
(36:33):
try to overcomplicate it if youdon't need to.
Joey Strawn (36:37):
I mean, Brent, one of the things that they say go
back to the processes, becausethis is, you know, this, we want
the industrial market orlisteners to be able to take
something away from these in theshop floor segments. And one of
the things that we've talkedabout is mapping those
processes. Do you have any tips,like whenever someone, you're
working with a client, you'relike, Okay, well, we need to map
these out, we need to get thisdocumented. And they're like,
(37:00):
well, we don't have any of that.
Like, do you have any tips? Arethere tools that you prefer? Is
there is it a write up? Is thata sketch? Like? How do you get
people to think about what theyneed to document those processes
to think about that,
Unknown (37:14):
Um, I guess there's a thing that don't overcomplicate
it, usually, I just use the worddoc, to go through those steps
initially. And then I'll usescreenshots to put in, you know,
the screen that the person isgoing to be using or the button,
right, they're going to clickon, you know, being able to use
(37:35):
something like preview and Macor, you know, Microsoft Paint,
if you have Microsoft Paint, youfill a circle around the button,
or, you know, something simplelike that. Or if you have a
designer, you can have a designor just, you know, mark off
where that button is going to beor the location that you're in
go the next step, you know, thatstuff. You know, sometimes I'll
do I kind of alluded to itearlier, I'll do a screen share,
(37:58):
capture video that helps out inaddition to the documentation.
And there's, you know,QuickTime, there's all kinds of
different screen recordingsoftware that you can use, I
don't really use anyone,specifically, just depending
when you know what I need to dofor that specific screencast.
Joey Strawn (38:17):
Just making sure that it's easy and easy to
follow.
Brent Lathrop (38:22):
Yep. Yep. And then you could also, you know,
search for documentation tools,potentially find something like
that. I've done that in the pastas well. So there hasn't been
just one. One process for that,that fits everything that I've
done in the past. And then, asfar as other tips is in, we
(38:46):
already already talked aboutkeeping it simple
implementation, you don't justjump right in, make sure you
have those meetings having thosediscussions. Yeah. And then, you
know, once, I think one thingthat that would be important to,
to note is to have a ambassadorat the company that is kind of
like that, the one that makesthe decisions on things. Because
(39:07):
if you have too many peoplegetting in there and changing
processes, changing the way theway it works, I've seen that in
the past, though, they'll comein and if they have admin
access, so they'll change thingsthe way they want it to be, but
they don't think about the otherparts of the business. And then
I'll get an email, you know, acouple days later, like, hey,
this isn't working anymore. AndI go in there, and it's good.
(39:29):
You know, it's because you know,Bobby or whoever it was, it went
in there and made his changes.
So making sure that that youguys are communicating
internally, when you're whenyou're making those changes and
implementations and also justhaving that one person
internally that can kind of makethat decision, like, Okay, we
need to do this. But let's seewhat the effects are for
everybody else, and then createa process for that and again,
(39:50):
document it to make sure thatpeople know that that process
has been implemented or thatchange to your system has been
made.
Nels Jensen (39:59):
Yeah, yeah.
Training is complicated, there'salways going to have to be
follow up, there's gonna have tobe side by side, sharing how to
use best practices, remedialtraining, right? But moving the
pack, you don't need to covereverything with everybody just
you get the, you know, you youpraise the early adopters and
give them what they need and thepack tends to follow. Right. So
how about tips for buying? Iwould assume, and I shouldn't
(40:23):
assume but I do that if you'veclearly identified benefits of
the CRM, you're also showing howit helps sales people, right?
What's, what's in it for them?
Right, what What tips do youhave for for getting buy in for
adoption and implementation?
Joey Strawn (40:43):
Yeah, you mentioned the ambassador, and I would
imagine like finding that personwould be would be key. But you
know, how? I guess like, what,what hurdles? Have you seen
people run into against, like, Ineed a system like this, but
they just they don't they don'tthink it's important? Or like
finding, finding?
Brent Lathrop (41:03):
Yeah, trying trying to find that common
ground for everybody to want touse it now is, is that kind of
what you're, you're getting at?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's gonnabe some that one and some that
don't. Yeah, that's, that'sactually a good point, too.
Because you're, you're having tobe a politician at that point in
trying to come in and makingsure that everybody's needs are
(41:23):
met. And I think it's just beingoverly communicative about it.
And upfront, you know, don't tryto hide anything, don't try to
have the ball, just come in andsay, This is what we're doing,
you know, if you have issues orif you have any trepidations
about getting into this, orconcerns, you know, come to me,
(41:47):
and we can talk this throughbecause overall, this CRM is
beneficial for the company, it'sso it's gonna be beneficial for
you, especially as a sales rep.
You know, if you want to getthese get credit for all the
work that you do, this is whereit's going to be, you know, it's
(42:07):
not like be like a piece ofpaper or a spreadsheet. You have
proof, you know, when it comesto the end of the year and your,
your review or if you're youknow, relying on the name is
escaping me right now. Your yourpaycheck.
Nels Jensen (42:24):
Your spreadsheets, billing,
Unknown (42:26):
Yeah, things, your money, your money, you're
getting paid. Right. Exactly. Soyeah. So when you're getting
you're getting paid for your,for your work that you're doing.
You have proof right therematters.
Nels Jensen (42:40):
Yeah, exactly. But the proof is right, the outcome,
right? That what is the outputof the CRM could tell you that
product A tends to be go throughthis type of decision maker
versus product B devs, to youknow, have a drop off point, x
or y, really helping the salespeople use their time more
(43:01):
efficiently, help them get morealigned with marketing, you
know, I think the the sellinghas to be around what's in it
for them. Right?
Joey Strawn (43:09):
It's and I do. And I think that's an important
narrative. As you know, wetalked about this early, one of
the biggest benefits, especiallyfor a b2b company, in industrial
companies, specifically is thealignment and communication
between what the sales team isdoing, and what the marketing
team is doing. And so that way,you have good leads that are
being vetted and qualifiedcoming into this system. And
(43:30):
then once they're in the system,there is a streamlined and
processed way that those leadsare engaged with that is shown
to drive revenue. Like the wholepoint of this is to streamline
and make everybody's jobs alittle bit easier, and get the
revenue in the books faster. Andso you know, as I've heard, you
explained it, Brendon, kind of,I want to put all the pieces
(43:52):
together that we've talked abouthere with you is that if you're
taking the time to understandyour market, so you know the
types of relationships and thejourneys that your customers are
going to be going on. And youunderstand the needs of your
sales team and the you know, thetypes of communications they
need, you should be able topiece a tool together. And then
(44:14):
once you have that tool inplace, having your understanding
your internal processes to thepoint where you can map them out
and train everybody on them willbe key to keeping things
streamlined. So then it's just amatter of using the tools that
they're how they're meant to beused for you. So you can tweak
(44:36):
and benefit and grow andoptimize along the way. Yeah,
like, kind of like stringing itall together to say, Listen,
this is a big, you know, theseare big deals. These are big
projects. These are big, scarytools sometimes, but the reality
is, is that if you understandwhy you're using them and
understand what you need to getout of them, then you can really
(44:59):
find that through line to getyou to the results pretty
quickly,
Brent Lathrop (45:03):
I think you made a good point there with no big
scary tools, and sometimes theyare for some people, but you
don't grow without pushingyourself a little bit. And I
think, you know, kind of talkingthrough that honest conversation
that I mentioned before justhaving, like, be honest with
(45:23):
your team, like, yeah, this,this might be tough up front, to
get into this and learn some ofthese new workflows, you know,
it's hard to teach a dog newtricks an old dog new tricks,
sometimes he's not the same. Butyou know, once once you get this
in there, you know, you're goingto we talked about, you know,
seeing your sales, you're goingto be able to your nails, you
alluded to this, see the statsbehind your sales, you know,
(45:45):
how, what's your rate of close,how long it's taken to get
through your sales funnel,you're going to be able to see
all those numbers, it's going tohelp fine tune you as a
salesperson, and help you makemore money because you're going
to be spending time on theproper sales in that pipeline,
instead of, you know, runningdown this trail over here,
because it's a it's a big, shinyobject, but you know, that your
(46:09):
chance of closing that one ismuch, much less. Hmm.
Joey Strawn (46:16):
Wow. Well, that was very helpful. Uh, that that
really does feel like a giftthat you just gave everybody.
Today to wrap out this year of2021. I mean, Nelson, are there
any final questions that youwant to? You want to ask Brent,
while we have him here before wegive deputy dev his leave?
Nels Jensen (46:36):
No, I think he's articulated the, the benefits
and the challenges very well.
And the opportunity, rightgrowth. That's, that's so true.
Growth is not easy, or we'd allbe growing constantly, right?
Yeah, yes, this, this is achallenge to an organization.
But the benefits, the long termsustainable benefits are huge.
(46:57):
For a lot of industrialcompanies. Absolutely. Yeah.
Especially with the crazyelongated buying cycle we have,
there's so much more data you'regoing to get about where people
drop off and what ranges closeand what what revenue, you know,
potential isn't there, it's justthat, you know, you get so much
more data during the buyerjourney.
Unknown (47:22):
Yeah, and you can even put some, going back to talking
about processes, you can evenput some something in your sales
opportunity pipeline, to where,if it is that longer sales
cycle, and you know, somebodyhas buying interest, but they're
not going to buy for six months.
Instead of putting that on apost it note somewhere and
putting it in a drawer.
Joey Strawn (47:41):
Or emailing a reminder in your email
Unknown (47:45):
Yeah, or task lists or something like that, you have an
ecosystem that that does thatfor you, that you can put a
state step in that process. Andwe've done it in the past,
because we see, we see that,especially in industrial there,
there's a long buying cycle. Andif they go off the path of that
normal buying cycle, and I sayI'm going to buy but I'm going
(48:06):
to buy in six months, you putthem into that that part of the
funnel, and then, you know, insix months are reminded that,
hey, I need to contact this guy.
And so he doesn't go to thecompetitor. And you know, when
he comes back, and is interestedagain.
Joey Strawn (48:20):
I, I can't I can't, there are so many ways that you
can automate. And then we talkedabout automation as a big
benefit in the first half ofthis. And there are so many
ways. And again, I'm gonna sayit again, we're gonna have to
have you back next year to talkeven more about this, because
figuring out how the CRM alignswith the customer journey and
(48:42):
then how to automate steps andthat to increase or decrease the
velocity of those sales is ahuge benefit that most
industrials that we work witharen't even considering. And so
there may be to your point, ifthe six months I'm going to buy
in six months, well, maybe wefind out that if four months, if
we send them an email of areminder, 90% of the time, it
(49:03):
leads to a conversion, you know,30 days faster. That's very
important that and so that issomething that is definitely
worthy of an entire episode ofexploration in my mind. So,
Brent, thank you as always, forbeing here. We're gonna have to
have you back on more and moreepisodes so we can keep so
picking your brain.
Unknown (49:23):
So January 1, but on my calendar.
Joey Strawn (49:25):
Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, it'd be we'll be
right there. First episode ofthe yes, you better believe it.
Oh, and you better believelisteners to industrial Marketer
Podcast that we will be back in2022. We are coming with all new
episodes with all new topicswith all new guests. And it's
going to be spectacular. So ifyou're not subscribed, what are
(49:48):
you doing? It's the time of yearof giving, give subscription,
and we'll give you free podcastepisodes. It's just that simple.
The holiday season we're fillingourselves with joy filling
ourselves With knowledge and wewant you to be along for the
ride so if you haven't alreadygone to industrial marketer calm
and filled yourself with theknowledge and the joy and the
good tidings of education aboutindustrial marketing, then go
(50:12):
over there and do it. It will bethings you can give send them to
your relatives for theirChristmas gifts, they're going
to love them. Articles arespectacular, but I cannot thank
you guys enough. This has been afantastic year of the industrial
Marketer Podcast and I am sovery excited to go into next
year and learn more now with youby my side as we ride on this
(50:33):
industrial marketer journeytogether
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