Creating a Successful Sales Process (S1.4)

In this episode we sit down with James Taverner, a Sales District Manager at Boshart Industries, to break down the essentials of creating a repeatable and effective sales process. He discusses why having a structured approach to sales is critical for both individual reps and business leaders, how to identify the right customers, and why confidence and consistency are key to long-term success.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Contractor Elite Podcast where we help contractors learn how to dominate their market. I'm Aiden Henry, your host, and in this week's episode, we sat down with James Taverner, a sales district manager here at Beauchar Industries. In this episode, he walks us through how to create a sales process and strategy. Now let's get into it. James, welcome. Thanks so much, man, for uh for being in this video. I'm excited to talk about this particular topic, how to create a sales process strategy. Obviously, it's something we've talked about uh continually. I don't know, do we ever stop talking about this really? Um I think you are a really interesting guy that is gonna have a lot of interesting things to say about this. So for uh our audience who may be coming from not having a sales process or strategy at all right now, or maybe they've had one in the past and it kind of went sideways, or um just maybe they're new to this. So, with all of that, why why is this important? Why should why should someone care? Why, why should they invest their time into this video?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Sure. Um, first of all, thanks for having me. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Yeah, this is uh a really awesome topic. You and I do talk a lot about it, and I think it's something that we should be, as uh sales professionals always talking about more and more. Um, you know, why it's important to me, I think the first thing to start with is just understanding, you know, who we're talking to about why it's important, right? Because for senior managers and senior leaders, the the importance of it is different than for uh sales professionals out in the field. It can be the same, but there are intricacies to that. I think, you know, for sales professionals and and leaders of organizations, it's really important to create consistency within the business across your sales team and to keep them on track with the goals that you have as an overall organization. Um, for salespeople, again, somewhat similarly, it's to keep consistency, but really in the day-to-day operations of what you're doing out in the field, and then to keep you on track to the overall company's uh goals that they have set out for you. I think the other thing to factor too is that ultimately, you know, the importance of this is really so that you can keep repeating your success. If you start to figure out how something works or why it works, you know, if your goal is to say, let's create, you know, create partnerships with your customers, uh, being able to do that through the same process over and over and over and repeat that success is really valuable for the organization and the individual salesperson together.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

And and you know, is it true to say that there are people out there, and we won't name names, but there are people out there who don't have a very defined sales process or strategy, and even if they're successful, they don't know why they're successful. So when you're talking about repeatability, um, is that something you've come across where you've seen, hey, someone might be good at sales, they might hit their numbers every year, but if they don't understand why, you know, what are what are the dangers of that?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

That's a great point. I think the other thing to factor too is that you know, business and economics ebb and flow. And so there are seasons where the market will carry you through your goals. And um, there are seasons where it won't. And so when it doesn't, having something to fall back onto to keep you as a business and your salespeople or yourself organized, steady, creating a you know, a good flow of customers and opportunities is really important. And you know, things fall through the cracks. As salespeople, we're super busy day to day, account management, pitching, whatever it is that you have to do as a salesperson based on your unique job, it's hard to continue to repeat that success unless you really know what's working for you over and over again. And so, you know, recording that and having a framework created is really important, in my opinion, to being able to have an aligned success approach for you and your team.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

And so I love that. All of that makes total sense. What about even for your customers, right? So the people you're reaching out to, whether it's existing customers that you already have relationships with or new customers that you're trying to onboard, what is the value to them of you having a repeatable sales process?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Yeah, it's really good. Uh, you know, there's there's two elements that I think are really important here. The first part is is answering your question, and the second part is talking a little bit about um how that relates for with you as a salesperson to your customer and what you share with them. So I think for your customer, it you know, it really creates a steady understanding of what you're trying to accomplish, right? If if they can see this process being executed in front of them, there's confidence that they gain in working with you, right? Whether that's a current customer or a new customer. The second piece to me is is um it relates to that is actually going through this process with your customer and sharing it with them. I think there's a lot of value that gets missed by not um by not sharing that process with your customer. So having that conversation with them to show them what it is that you're trying to accomplish and how you're trying to accomplish it with them and and also why you're trying to accomplish it with them can bring them kind of there's this saying of, you know, behind the curtain.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Yeah. I like that. I like that a lot. That makes sense. And and I think that that's an aspect that salespeople can sometimes forget is that a sales process not only makes their life easier and makes their um sales more repeatable, it helps them just dig into their understanding of what they're doing and why. And like you said, not just falling into being busy and kind of just oh, this is just what we always do, but it gives clear expectations to the customers about um exactly what they can expect out of the relationship and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah, the other thing too, just to add is I think it also helps deter, it helps you figure out um uh more quickly who it is that you want to be working with and for them to figure out the same with you, right? So there's been times, frankly, where I have leveraged our sales process with customers, and either they or I, through sharing that, can easily see that this is probably not the right alignment to be trying to move forward with an opportunity to work together. And that's okay. But that else, that what this does is it actually helps me get out in front of that earlier, right? So I know that answer sooner and I can move on to other opportunities as a salesperson that are more qualified for the relationship I'm trying to create than the one that I might be sitting in front of that might not be.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

So that's actually like that's super interesting, and I want to just dive into that real quick because especially if you know you're having a down year or your sales numbers have just been low while all your uh coworkers are skyrocketing, turning away business can sound uh like a crazy thing or something a crazy person does, right? So can you then maybe even shed some more light on, like, you know, the the short-term loss versus the long-term gain of getting specific about who you want to work with and and why you would actually, yes, through a sales process, be more defined about who your target audience is, but also who they aren't.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Confidence is I think more is is underappreciated, right? Um and you know, having a process that you believe in and your organization believes in can in some ways instill that extra bit of confidence that you need. And that's relatable because at the end of the day, if I know I'm walking away from an opportunity and I have nothing else behind me coming in, yeah, there's a big element of fear that plays into my decision-making process and ultimately potentially making bad decisions, right? About who to bring into the business or how to bring them in or the process to bring them in. And so if I know I have a great good framework and in addition to that, a great pipeline of prospects that I'm working through that framework, then ultimately I'm gonna feel a lot more confident in the decision that I'm making to walk away from business. I don't know if I'm exactly right in saying this, but there's this kind of belief that I have that when you turn down the right opportunities, things kind of work out for better opportunities to come after it. Now, that isn't just created out of thin air, but it's created through you building a good process and good pipeline. But I think if you have that confidence because you have that in your back pocket, it's very easy to walk away from that and good things end up kind of happening for you through it. So, you know, maybe it's also because you're creating more time to work on those better opportunities too, right? So maybe that's part of it.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

I like well, I mean if you think about it outside of a sales context, that that philosophy of working with or having that confidence and wanting to trust someone that's confident and how that plays into the sales process, like it makes sense. Like you wouldn't want to hire a heart surgeon to do open heart surgery on you who's like, I think I know it's gonna happen. Um, I read about this in the textbook, like you want someone who knows that process inside and out that is confident that knows that they can deliver on the results, right? So similarly, um narrowing in on who you're gonna work with creates more and more of that repeatability. And similarly, it's it's uh it's you know, this concept that I know you and I have talked about in the past about trading in good things for great things, right? So, yes, you might be losing a couple of dollars right now by um having a sales process or strategy that does not allow for you to necessarily work with this particular customer, not because you don't like them or don't want to work with them, but because you might not actually be really well suited to their needs and where their business is going and where your business is going. Um yeah, I think there's there's a lot of really interesting ideas.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Yeah, anyways. And I think how, and you know, ultimately, how does this all get created, right? Is a part of what we're we're discussing today. And I think a lot of it comes through, you know, really thinking through as leaders of an organization or salespeople, if you're doing this for yourself, all the things that we're talking about and creating that framework based on those concepts, right? So, you know, today in general, it's kind of hard for us to articulate to everybody like, here's the framework you should use, right? Use our use our framework, right? I don't I don't think that's the point, right? The point is, you know, we're trying to help people figure out what their framework is. And and a lot of what we're talking about today is how to do that, right? You know, getting some basic foundational ideas um, you know, on paper, and then saying, okay, how does that build my process out from there? Because every process is unique.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

I just read uh a book called The Lost Art of Closing by Anthony Anarino. Fantastic book. I know you know him as an author. I don't know if you've read that book, but um, one of the key themes of that book the whole way through is sales is not something that you do to someone. It's something you do with and for them. And I think when we take that philosophy and we infuse it into a sales process and strategy, it again, it changes the tone of the conversation, right? You're not in that conversation with that customer trying to just maximize the sale and separate them from their money as quickly as possible. You are instead of being, you know, across the table from them, you're on the same side of the table as them and you are helping them navigate their future and what they need to do, even if that means that it might not be you, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Yeah, you know, it's I love the analogy, right? And I think it it also can depend too on what you're trying to accomplish. But for us especially, right? Like there's that kind of trusted advisor concept where, you know, you and I are sitting on the same side of this table right now. Doesn't this feel a lot more friendly than if we were, you know, kind of over here, right? So, you know, working together to create solutions or a podcast or whatever we're calling this or whatever we're using it for is really important, right? And so being on that same side of the table is is what we try to accomplish. But at the same time, for other people, it might not be that way, right? There could be, you know, you could be in a situation, whoever is listening to this, where you are really just looking to capture as many opportunities as you can in a day. And so your goals are different. And again, that's where to me that process needs to be created, that framework through what those goals are, right? Um, you know, and and identifying those is a really key part of this.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

So you're you're hitting on, and I know we've already kind of uh talked a bit about it, but you know, the things to be aware of when building uh a sales process or strategy. Um, you know, I we've are already uncovered like a sales process and strategy will tell you who is your customer, but also who is not your customer. But you just hit on one there that I think is a good reminder that, you know, while we have a certain perspective and advice, that also is kind of specific maybe to our customers or the people we work with and the the values and the priorities of our company. But the the take home here is that there is no one size fits all. Our strategies that we're getting into today are not um, you know, step one, step two, step three of how to do these things. It's here are some of the the you know different uh aspects of a sales process and strategy that you should explore, but it's not a uh step-by-step guide, you know. Um are there any other um things to be aware of before someone gets into this that you can think of that would just be really important not to um take for granted or to assume one way or the other?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah, a couple things. Um, so you know, it's I just want to go back to what you were talking about there. I think there's a kind of you know natural progression of a relationship with a customer, right? Um now that isn't always the same for everybody, but it generally speaking is, and it's funny because you can actually kind of use a dating analogy here, right? Um look, you know, we generally start from a from a sales perspective with discovery. We move to a relationship, I'll call it, to a customer, to a partner, and you can use those names interchangeably, but you think of it again from a dating world, you know, you kind of meet and get to know someone, you kind of start dating from there, then you develop you know a serious relationship, and then you become partners and get married, right? And so that natural progression exists. Now, for everybody it might be slightly different, but but building your framework around that kind of whatever works for you in developing that that circle of a relationship is really important. Um, you know, things to be aware of. Um, yeah, I think like you mentioned, uh not having a one-size-fits-all approach is is really important. Um I think you know, strategy uh developing this also is based on goals is very important. And again, that's something that's unique and needs to be thought of. Uh, the other thing I think is A-B testing, right? You're not going to potentially overnight, maybe you are, create the golden ticket of a process for yourself. And so it's extremely important in my mind to create something that you think makes sense and test it. And if you feel like it's not perfect and it may never be, um move it, shift it. Um and then the final thing is that from that things change over time, right? I mean, how we sold years ago before I was in sales or even when I started in sales to now has changed and and will continue to change through computers, relationship, whatever it may be, right? Um, AI. And so making sure that your process shifts over time with that. There, you know, you can't just you know set it on in stone on, you know, and say this is my process forever, you know. It might be for a period, but you might need to tweak it over time, and that's really important, I think, to think about.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

I like that. So I think that we'll use that as our one last kind of recommendation thing to be aware of is that even if you are a seasoned sales professional, if you have decades of experience, it it doesn't mean that you have arrived. You know, sales, I think we would all I think we should all say is more of a journey than a destination, right? And um, you know, what works, like you said, what works today might not work tomorrow, what worked yesterday might not work today. So um I think that that's a great thing to to hold intention as even as we're talking about creating a sales process, a strategy here is that you know ideally we will create a really awesome process, but it's probably not gonna last us 10 years. Like it will need to be modified and tweaked and changed as time goes on. And I think that um that's a really, really important part. But now getting into the actual recommendations here, James. So we have um a list of different things that we have as recommendations of what we think our customers should do, whether they are on the management side, the leadership side, or uh more as an individual contributor. But the first one that we have is just either you know conversations with senior management or conversations as a team when it comes to developing a sales process and strategy. And I'm just wondering um what are your thoughts on that? Why is that an important place to start when making a sales process?

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah, I feel like I'm talking quite a bit about goals, but I think that's a huge part of it again, right? So it's it's making sure that you are aligned as a salesperson and your leadership are aligned, uh, or if you're a leader, making sure you're aligned with your salespeople around the goals that you're trying to achieve together. Um, I also think it's really important to determine what things need to happen in each element of the relationship to get where you need to be, right? So I'll give you an example with us. A big thing that we believe is that product infusion on some level is important. However, that needs to be done at a certain point. And so figuring out where and at what point that gets fit in is really important. And so doing that as a group and having those conversations together is really important. Um, and then I also think that you just need to also figure out like where does prospecting fit into all this too, right? So um again, there's all there's different elements within each part of the relationship for you or the development of the relationship with your end user customer that you need to think about and how you get them to where they they need to be with you.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Yeah, I like that a lot. I think, you know, not making assumptions that um, you know, this is how I think of this, and so that therefore this is how everyone on my team is gonna think of this. Um, I think that's an important part of this, right? Is just being aware that, again, given people's different backgrounds, where they come from, what's worked, what hasn't worked, what they've seen, um, all of those things are gonna color the sales process that someone has. And I know um Chris Windsor, who's a senior VP of sales and marketing at Boshar here, he has talked a lot in the past about like everyone has a sales process. It's just whether it's defined and repeatable or not. And so obviously, what we're talking about today is then um how to define it and how to repeat it and tweak it so that you can increase your success rate all depending on whatever success means to you, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:39

She know what a job in sales is.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Yeah. Well uh we'll see, we'll see. Talk to my wife about that. Okay. Um so another one that we've talked about here is product strategy. So, what you know, what role does product strategy play in a sales process and and you know, sales and understanding the product, although those things, there's overlap, sometimes there's separation. You only need, you know, I've I've heard you say, you know, to be a salesperson, you only need to know the product to a certain degree in order to sell it. I mean, if all it took to sell product was just knowing it really well, we'd have engineers as salespeople, but we don't. We have salespeople as salespeople because there's an art to it, right? So product strategy, why is that important in a sales process?

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Why does it matter? I'll play off what you said too, right? Like let's take it the other way, right? So if somebody comes in first day, day one, makes a sale, right, to a customer. Do you think they knew much about product on day one? No. So how do they sell? Well, they sold on their sales capability, right? So product is important, but it has a unique fit into your sales process. And I think figuring out where it fits in is really important again, right? Um, you know, there are elements to figuring out what product strategy you want to take, but again, where it fits is is is equally as important. Um, you know, some different things to think about. I think your unique offering, you know, what things do you bring to the table, and then how do you fit that in at the right time, right? Um, you know, for me personally, I have always believed that, you know, uh understanding and building a relationship with the customer and what they expect and what they need and learning about their business overall is more important and should be to some degree the first thing that I focus on. In certain cases, there's exceptions, but um as much as possible before I introduce product. Um, because product is important, but if I don't have that foundational relationship, it really isn't gonna matter, right? Um, whether my product is unique or whether it's not. Like the reality is more and more products are becoming commoditized too, right? So stepping away from the product and uncommodifying your capability with that is really important through other means.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Um that's an interesting thing, right? With the advent of the internet and even big sites like Amazon, right? Where you can sometimes get products cheaper uh or at the same price as uh you would uh from certain vendors, right? And so then it's up to that vendor to identify um what is it that would make someone buy from me. I'll give you an example. I was uh at an office supply store yesterday with my wife, and we were looking at buying a printer. Uh, and we talked to a sales guy there, and he was pretty knowledgeable and he gave us a bunch of information, but I just had this kind of hesitation. I'm like, ah, I want to go home and see if I can find a better price online, right? And so, you know, I think we as salespeople and marketing people, we need to be aware of that and understand the dynamics at play there and understand that, you know, one of the things I'm leading up to here is just that I don't think just, you know, having a 5% more superior product than your competitor is enough anymore. That might have been enough at some point in time. You can maybe argue that it never was, but anyways, um, but that simply is not enough anymore. So when it comes to product strategy, I guess my question to you is like, how do you balance that in terms of like, you know, when you're gonna lean into the product, oh, our product is more superior, or are there other things that you're also trying to sell that might not directly do with product, but um are important factors for your customers?

SPEAKER_01 22:18

You're asking me to give away all my uh secrets here now. Uh no, I for me, you know, one of the things that I often leverage is the idea that whenever I'm gonna talk about product, I kind of need to um have a a kind of pre-discussion about the context through which I'm bringing product up, right? Because whenever you do bring it up is your choice, but the context is really important. And so, you know, my usual kind of take is that I often will introduce it as, you know, as I I know whatever I say right now is gonna be taken uh to some degree with a grain of salt, because at the end of the day, everybody comes in here and talks to you about product, and you kind of have to see it to believe it, right? So I think again, the the point of what I was getting at is the context of how you discuss it is important. And that context has to be unique for you. That's my context. Um, you know, sometimes I'll go into meetings and say, hey, listen, I am not here to talk about product, right? Really? Yeah, and and that way I can have a discussion and bring their kind of their guard down that that's what I'm here to talk about, that they're gonna get a catalog slapped in front of them and I'm gonna tell them how great our ball valve is and how great our pricing is or things like that, and just kind of let them kind of uh embrace the discussion around business uh first, right? So that's to me where context is really important, you know. The other things too to think about, you got to look and understand market trends. Um, and you really also I think have to understand uh you know the size of the market and the size of your offering as well, too, right? I mean, we have a massive offering. So, you know, that plays into the discussion around product as well. So a couple other things to think about.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Yeah, and I think, you know, a common thing, I I'm sure you have heard it, and we've seen it not just among our sales team, but many different sales teams is, you know, ah, I I don't understand the market, or you know, I, you know, I'm talking to someone who knows more than me, right? So particularly in our industry, when we're talking about plumbing, water well, HVAC wholesalers. Um, if if we've got maybe it's a counterperson or an outside sales staff or someone like that who doesn't feel like they know their product as well as their customer does that comes in to actually buy. One of the recommendations I know that we as a Beauchart sales team have made over and over is that that you know, plumber, contractor, what have you, might be an expert on their business, and they are, and you shouldn't expect to be more of an expert on their business than they are, but you potentially have access to hundreds of different businesses that are similar in a similar market, experiencing a lot of the same trends. And so while you might not be an expert necessarily at their exact business, you have insights and value and things you can share from a broader perspective, right? Do you have experience with that? Have you leveraged that to your advantage at different times in in sales meetings? Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

I think I think that salespeople don't realize often how many insights they actually possess. And I think that insight doesn't always have to come from product. And it's very easy to feel like it does because look, that's what we're here to sell. They're buying product, yeah. Right. But there are a lot of things that you can discuss with with somebody that can create value beyond the discussion around that, right? Frankly, you don't have to be from the industry. Um, you know, you you might just watch, I don't know, the news and understand what's happening globally that could be impacting uh your customer's business. Um and and so there's lots of different areas to pull from, you know. Um the other thing, too, I think is really important is for those people that are new out there into this space, I don't think it is a bad idea to leverage, in my personal opinion, the fact that you are new, right? You can only use that card for so long, but there is that capability to kind of use that card for a little bit. And I think for that season, leaning into that is really helpful because that can gain you a lot of insight by listening and learning. And then, like you said, you know, you can reapply insights to other people, right? So if I spend my first five, six months really learning and gaining a lot of insights from a bunch of different people that are willing to give me them and then kind of flipping those and using them as kind of trading options with other people where it makes sense, you know, you can kind of build a pretty good kind of base of things to discuss or talk about that make you sound quite um you know, savvy and knowledgeable. Right, exactly. So that's a big thing for me too.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

I like that. Um, specifically, again, going back to the sales process and strategy and building one, yeah, being price driven or being quality driven. Um, you know, everyone in an ideal world, you are both, maybe. I don't know if that if I do I agree with that. Anyways, we'll leave that for now. In an ideal world, you're both, but is it true to say that we will sometimes see customers that tend to err one way or the other, or maybe they even carry um two competing uh competing uh lineups of products that maybe appeal to both, right? Because obviously you're gonna have that in the end user, the contractor as well. So um how much of that plays into developing your sales process if you um identify whether you are price driven or quality driven or or how do you do that? Or yeah, I'll I'll let you kind of go.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

It absolutely plays into that uh how you build the process. Um, and I think it is it is a unique space to be in or figure out where you want to be in, right? Um finding a balance might be your your kind of direction again. If you're new into the market, it might be trying to pound as many opportunities with the bottom dollar if you can, if that's what you choose, right? And maybe you're just looking for a couple partners a year that make up all the number that you need, and that's what you run with is trying to find two or three good partners. So it does play a really big factor. And I think you know, finding that balance is really important. The other thing I think to really factor is your reputation. Um, it really, you know, who do you want to be seen as to customers? And also I think looking at what the long-term goal is of who you want to be seen as, right? Because if you believe that it's a good idea today to sell things for say a cheaper price or yeah, or undercut the market, is that what you want to be seen as forever? Because if it's not, you have to factor how that will look to people over time. It's not an easy opinion to change.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

And so your process needs to think about this, right? How how you go to market with pricing and quality is really important and needs to be considered on a long-term outlook.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

I love that. That's so interesting. Now I'm gonna ask for your very subjective opinion on this. If there's someone listening that goes, oh, we are a company and we want to do both. We want to be really price-driven, undercut the market, and we want to have a quality product and sell the gross the best stuff. Is that possible? Is that a recommended strategy? Have you seen that work anywhere? Have you seen it flop? What is your very personal take on that?

SPEAKER_01 29:45

I'll see. Um Yeah, I think I think it it can work. I think it's a very delicate space to be in. And I think your perception in that space, again, is something that needs to be very closely monitored. Um tell me more. Well, I think I think the big thing too, you know, when you when you start to play into the quality space, there's an opportunity there to make more money, right? Because people pers if you can get people to perceive and understand that your product is of higher value, then I think you would be to some degree fool foolish to underserve your own margin and your customers' margin by reducing the market in its price. That being said, there are markets, customers, and users, areas where you do have to be somewhere specific with pricing. Yeah. And so it's it's a game and you have to play the game. Um, you know, I don't know if that answers your question. I think can it be done? Yeah, it just needs to be done really carefully. I think to some degree everybody does it, right? I mean, we're all trying to do that. I don't think we're any different. We can say we all only care about quality and that's all it is, but I think we'd be lying to ourselves and and everybody if we truly said that from time to time. We have to get competitive too. And so we hold that balance as well.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Yep, that makes a lot of sense, right? It's it's yeah, again, ideally you are both, but um, yeah, that's it's gray, I think is ultimately the best way to look at it, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:27

There's no, there's no black, there's no white, and and that grayness has to really fit into that process for you of where do you want to live and where do you want, you know, like much like product, where do you want price to fit into your process? When does that come up and how does it come up are really important things to think about. If it's the first thing that's coming up in your process, well, I can tell you where your process might be headed. Okay. And maybe you want it to be headed in that place. Maybe you don't. You have to decide that.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

I like that. Well, and and keeping in mind that, as you kind of said, like, you know, being more of a quality-driven vendor, there might be more opportunity to make more money there, but it's also gonna be harder to get there, right? Because you are not, you know, they they can literally use the phrase, your competitor down the street has this cheaper, right? And so that's where you have to have a knowledgeable enough sales team to be able to say, well, on paper it might look that way, but you're really comparing apples to oranges, right? Um, so again, it I think absolutely, I think everyone tries to do this to a degree and you can do it, but I I like what you're saying about just it's a delicate balance. You gotta be aware, you gotta understand, and there are indicators along the way as well of where you actually are and where you might not be.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah, and that's where just real quick, that's where prices, you know, process, sorry, you you can kind of fall back into it, right? Because if your process is really strong, you're gonna be comfortable knowing, hey, I'm walking away from this with other things that I've got that I'm working on or that I'm gonna be happy with, you know, closing on in the future, um, and this isn't the right fit or the right alignment for me. I like that a lot.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Going back here, so pipeline management as an aspect of a sales process. So, for anyone that doesn't know what is a pipeline, um, why is it an important thing, you know, sales leader versus an individual contributor, how do you balance that? I know we could spend uh days talking about pipeline and pipeline management, but maybe just uh a quick snapshot of that.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Yeah, trying to take a deep breath to figure out how I capture this in one kind of brief discussion. Um so to start, I think pipelines are underserved in our space or underutilized. Um I know other spaces um where other industries where it is very much ingrained in the culture of sales. And I don't believe it is to the same extent here. Um there is a ton of value in it. Essentially what a pipeline is is it's a a um a funnel through which you're putting customers through to get them from one, you know, from one place to the next, right? And through that funnel, there are different stages that you have to work your customer through. And why I think this really relates to your process is because it's it's a it's a it's an overlapping, maybe even potentially the same thing for some people, but it's those stages or those elements of the process often kind of go through the same the same kind of direction to get to where the same the end result you want to accomplish, right? So for example, you know, your pipeline uh is often going to have names and columns or or rows or however you want to you know organize it and you're pushing people through it. And again, much like you're doing the same with your process, I'm drawing a circle with a process again, it could be this way as well.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Um so that's really what a pipeline is to me. It's a movement of your customer through stages uh to get them to an end result. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

And I think you know, it was it was interesting what you said about hey, in our industry specifically, you think this is an underutilized tool. So um what what are the benefits? Like why why make this a priority to focus on having a pipeline at all?

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Yeah, I think it goes similarly a lot really well along with process, which is again why we're talking about this. But um if your pipeline, much like your process, is not um explained, understood, and and aligned on with everybody in the organization, then you might not have opportunities coming your way. And so what that does is it creates holes in your business. And that ultimately is a problem. Um, you know, like we said earlier, you know, economics change. There might be seasons where business isn't growing. If you don't have a good pipeline, in my opinion, then you have an opportunity where you might, you know, have a season where you don't have good business coming in. Um and so it's really important to me to do that. I think you know, it's it thinking a lot about what goes in a pipeline is really important, um, making sure you're putting the right opportunities in it. Again, that is often dependent on your process and your goals, right? Who are you trying to and what are you trying to achieve? And then figuring out does an opportunity based on that belong in my pipeline? And then the other big component for me is making sure that you move things through a pipeline. It's very easy to let things sit or get stuck, and that the what I've seen from my experience is the longer something sits in a pipeline, the lower the closed percentages of that opportunity. And so moving things through a pipeline is really important and understanding where things get stuck and how to overcome those things is really important. And again, I think it relates really well back to process because if you're following your process that you know works to build a relationship with your customer, then you should theoretically be able to move that customer through your pipeline using your process. And so there's a lot of overlap that exists between the two.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Well, and uh in a lot of ways, a pipeline is almost like a mirror, right? It will reflect back to you how you are actually doing and where deals potentially get stuck, right? So ideally in a pipeline, if you know that at stage two, that that's where you lose 60% of the leads that you put in there, uh you know you have a problem that needs addressing, right? So this again all ties back to repeatability and knowing yourself so that you can help your customer and move them along, right? And and again, all the same, like having a pipeline, you will only close a percentage of uh the deals that actually come through your pipeline, and that's by design, right? The pipeline is meant to kind of help you weed out um who is a viable fit for your business and who is not, right? But again, a pipeline really will help you understand exactly where are you going wrong potentially, where are things falling apart, what do you need to work on? Maybe it's something that is a symptom with your whole sales team, maybe it's just you as an individual, right? Um, but I think pipelines are are interesting that way and definitely worth the investment to actually set up, you know.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Yeah, I think if you're not using one today, it is really important that you start to tracking is key. As a salesperson, you have a lot going on, like we said earlier. It's hard to keep up, and having somewhere to go back to and ground you in the things that you're working on is really important. And I think you know, moving things along is kind of this idea of like getting to close as fast as you can, right? And different opportunities have different sales cycles, but if you know what the sales cycle roughly should be, then making sure you try to close the deal won or lost, you know, win or lose, as fast as excuse me, possible within that sales cycle is really important. Um so yeah, and I think again, I think there's just so much overlap between your pipeline and your and your uh process that you could even make them the same, but while you're doing one, do the other. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Well, and yeah, I think like you're you're highlighting that again, it just a pipeline will will explain back to you how you are doing and how you're not doing and and um help you identify that you are putting the right customers through it, right? So with a pipeline, I guess there are probably a lot of different ways that you can track a pipeline. It could be as simple as an Excel sheet or a bunch of post-it notes, right? But um the next tool that or the aspect we want to talk about creating a sales process is using a CRM. So can you maybe shed a bit of light on um maybe for anyone that doesn't know, what are some of the more popular CRMs? What is a CRM? How does it integrate with uh a pipeline? Why should you be using a CRM if you're not currently using one?

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Yeah, so CRM stands for customer uh relationship management and tool. Tool or software. It doesn't matter. I mean it it's interchangeable. There's a couple really good ones out there in the market. Um, you know, we use HubSpot, um, Salesforce is another really well-known one. There are plenty of others. Um, there are ones that I know that work really well for rep agencies as well, specifically for them. Um, some um uh ERPs even include them with inside uh the the actual software themselves. So um, yeah, I think utilizing one is really critical to your business. And and I think it really relates to process because if you're not tracking things like again, your pipeline or your customer relationships, your your conversations with your customers, it's very hard to follow the follow the process with them that you're created, right? You have no idea where they are, right? I mean, we're again we're busy people and there's so much going on, there's so much coming out as technology's you know made that even worse. And so, unless you have an idea of what what's being tracked and to be able to come back to it really quickly, you're gonna fall behind. Um, and so you know, tracking the big thing for me is really just focusing on what are people tracking in the pipeline, what are sales people tracking in their pipeline. So, you know, it's very easy to just write anything. Um, I feel like it's really important to um have notes or um thoughts in there that can help you drive to the next conversation you're gonna have, right? So if I just had a conversation with you and we're in X part of our process and I know we need to get to Y, then it's a really good time for me when I'm doing my notes on the X part of the process that we're in to also make notes on how I'm gonna get you through Y. Because that way when I come back to a discussion with you, I already know what I'm trying to accomplish when it's time for that next discussion, right? I don't have to I don't have to go back and revisit my notes and then think or rethink, okay, what happened that discussion, how am I gonna go to the next part of the process? I already know, right? So having really good points in your pipeline or in your uh CRM about the conversation, what happened, and just what you thought about it is really critical.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Well, and that kind of reminds me of uh Ernest Hemingway, the famous author. He he was known for um, I believe he wrote every single day or once he eventually got going as an author, but um one of the things he was famous for was that when he would finish writing for the day, he would leave a sentence on the page unfinished. So he'd start a sentence but not end it. And the reason that he did that was so that when he came back to it the next time, he didn't have this writer's block of like, ah, where should I go from here? Where do I take the story? It he literally is finishing it out, so it's that momentum, right? So I think very similarly with note-taking and and um really documenting the calls and the interactions you have with customers, doing a really good job of that in the moment that in the couple of minutes after that call is ended or the customer's walked out the door is so much, so valuable to making your life easier and saving you a significant amount of time later when you have to have another interaction with that customer, right? And so another thing, you know, I would love to kind of know what are some of the things that you particularly do after a sales caller what do you recommend? And so not just take detailed notes, and I know you're like a little bit crazy about this, which I think is fantastic for our audience here, is um, you know, I know that you take a lot of detailed notes, but I think one of the other things that you do that I think is really smart and I think most people would benefit from doing is um like setting actionable um like reminders or or setting up the next meeting or just some of these different things so that you're not just kind of leaving it at, oh, that was a great call, and that's it. You actually will have something like you know, in four days, remind me to send this email to this customer following up on. This right, so do you can you shed some light? What do you do? What what do you recommend? Maybe so if someone maybe we'll kind of take it from this angle. If someone has nothing that they do right now, maybe they finish a call and they go, Oh, that was cool, and they kind of just store it up here. What would you recommend that they start doing when they start documenting these calls? It's funny.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

Don't I hope people hear this and and are able to learn from my mistakes. Okay. And I think we all as salespeople start in sales and do this, but we think we remember everything. It's so easy to think that we are. And you know, I when I first started in sales, I don't even know if I was maybe I was taking notes on paper. I don't know what I was doing with follow-up, who God knows. Uh, but you know, right now, uh, there is a lot of opportunity out there to make this simple for us as salespeople. And that I think is the most important part about this because we're busy, yeah, we leave a call, we get in the car, we got to get quickly to lunch, stop McDonald's for 10 minutes and get to the next haul or whatever, wherever we're going. And so, you know, it's really important to me that we simplify this process because the longer it takes to do these things, the more the more likely it is that we don't do it.

SPEAKER_02 45:14

Yep. More friction, right?

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Right. And so there's two things, there's two parts to this. The first is actionable items, which you mentioned. Um, you know, there are tidbits that you learn from a customer that are really important to the next things that you're gonna do to develop and move them through the process that you're working on with them. Sometimes it's professional, often it is, and then sometimes there's personal stuff, like you know, uh an anniversary that they told you is coming up. Like, think about how valuable it would be to be able to touch base with people when they told you that a hockey game was on in three nights that they're really looking forward to, and you're able to, you know, follow up on that fourth day about the hockey game uh and interact with them about it. Like there's so much value in that, right? It shows that you care, it shows that you're listening. Um, and again, there's also obviously professional stuff within that too. So I really believe that creating actual next steps and not just one, you know, uh around your next meeting, but around the other things that you heard. You know, we're working right now, little story, on a button for a customer that says bow shark when they press it, right? And so that was derived from leaving a meeting, being like, damn, that would be cool if we had that, because they have one right now that says, yes, we just have a bow shark one. And so, you know, that was derived from setting a good action to have a conversation with you following the discussion. I'm going off a little bit. Sorry. The second, the second really important thing to me um is is AI and all this. Yeah. And and I even even touched on AI. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go into a whole spiel about everything, but I want to just go into one small thing here. There are there is the capacity out there now to have your notes taken so much quicker and put into your CRM in whatever capacity you want through many different means. The means that I really believe in in this moment is tools where you can basically talk to your phone and tell it to do things like you would an assistant. So not only does it take your notes, but through talking to the assistant, like talking to your phone, you can actually get it to do tasks for you too, like set follow-up, like moving your deal into the next stage of your pipeline, like telling it to make a note to call somebody in three days from now and having it do that. And so, you know, again, we leave one call, what do we do? We drive. Yeah. So two hands on the wheel, but if I can be talking to my phone like I'm calling my assistant, I mean, all salespeople would love an assistant, right? We all would love one. Everybody would in the workforce. Well, now you have one, use it, and I think that is is really a good part. I'll leave it at that for what AI can do for you.

SPEAKER_02 48:11

Well, and I think that's just a really great thought, right? Because, you know, part of what we've been talking about about creating a sales process is removing friction and trying to create repeatability and make things as easy as possible. Because, like we've said over and over, everyone is busy, no one has time to do these things. We have more stuff to do than ever. So if you can leverage technology to your advantage, you should be doing that. Uh, Jeb Blunt has a book called Sales EQ, and one of the types of intelligence he talks about is technical intelligence, and he talks about how some of the most effective salespeople don't shy away from technology. And it's not to say that you need to completely reinvent yourself every year, but just that the top performing salespeople will see these tools and be early adopters and will run to them as opposed to being afraid of them. So, similarly, you know, how great would it be if all of us had an assistant? Absolutely. Sounds amazing. Well, with AI, it's not perfect yet, but it's getting us pretty damn close, man.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

It's uh you know, I've used it quite a bit in, yeah, there are kinks, but you know, even if even if AI saved you 90% of your time. No kidding. Right? So that 10% is different work than what the other 100% was, right? It's fixing the notes or adjusting what it did or didn't do, but wouldn't you rather do that 10% of fixing than 100% of that work in the evening? Yep. I don't know, I would, right?

SPEAKER_02 49:36

No kidding. So well, um pitching is another aspect of a sales process and and being defined, and I think you know, we've talked a lot about it. It's a major theme of uh our conversation today is just consistency. So when it comes to pitching and being part of your sales process, how do you view pitching as fitting into there? And how um how do you recommend someone start pitching if they have never done it before or they don't know what they're doing?

SPEAKER_01 50:05

Yeah, well, I think obviously the big part about pitching is that you just have to do it, right? Like nobody's perfect, you're never gonna be perfect. Being able to have a discussion with your customers is just you just have to do it, right? Um a good friend of mine um talks about this idea of kind of um, she calls it sales posture, right? And and I love the term, um, and it's I think it's so important that we appreciate that everybody has their own sales posture, but you have to lean into yours and you have to just go out there and pitch. Um, you know, how does it relate to uh building a process? Well, I think that a lot of what you're doing to start with your sales process is going to be pitching, right? And so creating that pitch and using your sales process and leveraging that in your pitch is really important, right? That's kind of like what I said at the beginning about being able to talk through your sales process to a customer and bring them behind the curtain and show them the kind of map that you're laying out in front of them of where you want to go and articulating that to them is really important. So, you know, that to me is is kind of why pitching is is valuable.

SPEAKER_02 51:14

I like that. And pitching, you know, if someone has pitched in the past and it hasn't gone well and they're maybe a little gun shy, how would you recommend someone kind of get over the fear of pitching or being told no, right? Because I think that, you know, to speak in very general terms, I think that's a very real fear for a lot of people, even in the sales industry, is being told no. And I know that we've had a lot of conversations in the past about, you know, some people will say that when you hear the word no, that's when selling really begins, right? So I guess what recommendations do you have for someone who has pitched in the past, hasn't gone incredibly well, they're nervous to start again. What would you recommend?

SPEAKER_01 51:58

Prepare, rehearse, role play, um, plan, whatever word you want to use. It's really about that pre-work. I think a lot of it, um, you know, at the end of the day, you do just have to get out there and do it. But if you're more prepared, you're more organized, you've rehearsed, you've role-played, you're you're putting yourself in the best possible position to succeed, and that comes through for you and for your customer. Um, I also think that there's only in most cases, depending on your business, there's only really a couple of like objections, right? And and other most things will either fit into those real objections or they're not actually objections and and they're really just kind of conversational tools that you need to be able to somewhat, I hate this word, but weaponize. Um, and I think part of that comes from just time in the field, right? Like the more time that you spend in the field hearing objections and building an arsenal of responses, the easier that gets, right? So again, it kind of goes back to like you just have to do it. Um, but I think that's really important. Product knowledge is an element of that too, right? Sometimes it feels uncomfortable going somewhere and not being able to talk about something that um that you know you know your customer is gonna bring up. So if you can, you know, get more knowledge on your product, that's a big uh a big value. Um, and you know, I think the other thing is just being okay with saying I don't know, right? There's gonna be times where whether it's product or whether it's something else, you don't know the answer. And if you know that it's okay to say I don't know, it really helps you go in there and just feel confident about the fact that you're just having a conversation. It's really all you're doing, right? And and sometimes those conversations are really well and you know the answers to everything, and sometimes you don't. And you know, my my belief is that if you don't, it's okay to say so.

SPEAKER_02 53:50

Well, and I think it's a credibility builder too, right? Because I think if you try to bluff your way through a conversation with someone who knows more about that topic than you do, it is a losing battle. There is absolutely no way you can do that, right? So it's better to, you know, take the L there and to say, you know, I don't know this, I'm gonna follow up with you, and I will find the answer uh to the question that you have rather than try to fluff your way through it because it just, you know, it I was thinking about this the other day that you know respect and um reputation take ages and ages to build, but they can be lost in an instant, right? So I think similarly, in an instance like that, if you are nervous about pitching because you've done things wrong or you've the conversation took a left turn that you weren't anticipating, um, you know, it's there's just no other way around it. You kind of just gotta go for it again. And and I like what you're saying about preparing ahead of time, and I think that's one of the biggest tips that I have for anyone, anyone on my staff or just anywhere in my life is like, you know, when you are nervous about a particular conversation or experience you're gonna have, try to think through all the possible ways that that might go, right? Think of if you know the multiverse and how many different potential outcomes there could be. If you can explore every one of those, almost every one of them are probably not as bad as you think it is. And in every instance, if you're thinking ahead, you can think, okay, if X happens, then I'll do Y, or if this happens, I'll do this. And I think that that is how you gain confidence going into a conversation that you don't know how it's gonna turn out is when you're kind of mentally preparing for where it might go, right? But James, this this has been a phenomenal conversation, man. I love doing this. This is so cool just to pick your brain. Yeah, always good when we get together. Um as we start to kind of to wrap up here and and think about um, you know, uh just the entire process as a whole, um, my last big question for you is just we've covered a lot of ground today. There's there's been a lot of recurring themes, a lot of um different aspects there, but if there was one single thing that you could help someone leave with today, so again, we've talked about a lot of different stuff. If they forgot everything and they only heard this answer, what is the single thing that you think that someone should do in order to start to create um an effective sales process or strategy that is going to carry them into the future?

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Yeah, um I think the biggest thing you need to do is figure out what your goals are. And I've said that a bunch in this discussion we've had. Um if you know what your goals are, that is the place to start. If you don't, you gotta figure them out. Uh and then from there work backwards, right? If you know what the end, if you have the end in mind, you can develop the stages or the different elements of your process backwards from there. And and that would be what I would suggest doing. Um, you know, there's a lot of things we've talked about today, but if you can just figure out what the goals are and go back from there to the start of what that looks like with your customer or the the prospect you're discussing with, um, that would that would I think really help a lot of people uh get going here.

SPEAKER_02 57:05

And that's the episode. If you want more tips and tricks on how to level up as a contractor, head over to contractorelite.co and sign up free. We'll be regularly posting new podcast episodes, marketing tips for contractors, and tons more. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you in the next one.