✨ Why Watch This Episode ✨
👤 For Sales Professionals – Discover how to make CRM work for you, not against you. Gain a clearer sales process, reduce wasted effort, and free up more time to sell.
👔 For Sales Managers – Learn how to transform CRM into a real management tool. Improve visibility, strengthen collaboration across sales + presales, and apply quick-win tactics for performance turnarounds.
📈 For Sales Enablement Leaders – Uncover proven strategies to boost CRM adoption, align sales methodology with daily practice, and measure true business impact that drives productivity and revenue growth.
📢 We’re thrilled to welcome Chris Smith to the show! Christopher is a seasoned sales leader, author, podcaster, and CRM strategist who has spent his career helping organizations unlock the true potential of their customer relationship management systems.
✅ As the author of "CRM Shouldn't Suck," Chris has become a go-to expert for transforming CRM from a frustrating burden into a powerful engine for sales success.
In this episode, we’ll explore:
✨ What You’ll Learn in This Episode ✨
🎯 Why CRM often fails – The hidden people, process, and tool problems that frustrate teams and prevent CRM adoption.
🛠️ How to fix it – Chris’ CRM Success Methodology and practical steps to turn CRM into a driver of sales performance.
🤝 How sales & presales win together – Why strong sales methodologies matter, and how they foster alignment, collaboration, and better outcomes.
LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/christophersmith8/
Webpage: empellorcrm.com/
Book: www.amazon.com/CRM-Shouldnt-Suck-Avoiding-Strategies/dp/B0DV48CZRK
Tune in for this informative conversation at TalkRadio.nyc or watch the Livestream by Clicking Here.
In this episode of Making SEAMless Sales, Art Fromm sets the stage for a conversation with Chris Smith, author of CRM Shouldn’t Suck, by highlighting the importance of aligning people, processes, and tools to create sales success. He reflects on the common pitfalls of CRM systems—where sales teams see them as burdensome because they seem to serve only management—while stressing that the right balance and training can make them powerful assets. Art also shares his excitement over the show surpassing 500 downloads in just six weeks and previews actionable insights on making CRMs more effective for both individual contributors and sales leaders.
In this segment of Making SEAMless Sales, Art Fromm introduces Chris Smith, founder of Impeller CRM and author of CRM Shouldn’t Suck, who shares insights from nearly 40 years of CRM experience. Chris emphasizes that CRM is a tool—not a cure-all—that should enable businesses to align people and processes around strategic goals, yet too often it fails due to poor adoption, bad data, and being treated as a reporting system for management rather than a value driver for sales teams. Together, Art and Chris highlight how ineffective CRM use can waste millions, frustrate teams, and distort critical business decisions, while a properly implemented system can serve as the central hub that fuels customer success and organizational growth.
In this part of Making SEAMless Sales, Chris Smith outlines his six-part methodology for making CRM a true growth driver: aligning with strategic goals, supporting company culture, reviewing processes, ensuring clean data, assessing execution, and integrating technology. He stresses that CRM should be treated as a business strategy, not just software, and highlights how automation and AI tools like Microsoft Copilot are transforming efficiency by capturing meeting notes, creating tasks, and reducing wasted time. Chris closes by offering a free copy of his book CRM Shouldn’t Suck and a quick online CRM assessment at CRMShouldntSuck.com to help companies identify what’s working and what isn’t.
In the Dear Artie segment of Making SEAMless Sales, Art Fromm answers questions on how to make CRM systems genuinely support sales rather than feel like administrative overhead. He explains the importance of embedding proven sales methodologies directly into CRM platforms like Dynamics and Salesforce so salespeople see them as tools that help them sell better, not just report data. Art emphasizes that aligning sales and pre-sales teams around shared information in CRM can significantly boost results, reduce wasted effort, and create a single source of truth—while also previewing next week’s episode featuring Jerry Timmis, a formative figure in his own sales career.
00:00:47.210 --> 00:00:53.120 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Hello, everybody, and welcome once again to the Making Seamless Sales show.
00:00:53.410 --> 00:00:57.420 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Welcome from Mars, Pennsylvania, Episode 7.
00:00:57.750 --> 00:01:05.060 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: On today's show, we're going to be featuring Chris Smith from Impeller CRM, the author of the book, CRM Shouldn't Suck.
00:01:05.209 --> 00:01:13.349 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And it's all about customer relationship systems, the core of sales functions, but often also the bane of its existence.
00:01:13.500 --> 00:01:25.160 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: My name is Art Fromm, I'm the founder and president of Team Sales Development, and I'm using this platform to share ideas based on my sales and enablement career.
00:01:25.520 --> 00:01:33.309 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: I've been involved from the time when there was mainframes through distributed computing, to virtual desktops, to cloud, to AI.
00:01:33.340 --> 00:01:44.739 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And, kind of seen it all in sales and sales enablement roles. I've curated key interconnected topics from my entire consultative selling career.
00:01:44.740 --> 00:01:57.420 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: my portfolio and offer it in my book with the same name as the show, Making Seamless Sales, so feel free to pick that up to get more details about the types of things we're talking about.
00:01:57.700 --> 00:02:12.909 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: I do have some amazing news to share, which I'm really very proud and shocked and honored and humbled about it. I was notified yesterday that the show has garnered over 500 downloads, and we're just in week 6.
00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:25.170 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And we've just been distributed to all of the favorite channels, podcasts, streaming services, etc. So, thank you, everybody, for your support. Share, like, comment, subscribe.
00:02:25.170 --> 00:02:40.919 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And then please go back and listen to the other episodes. If you're new, every show has a ton of information in it. Usually, I kick off with some comments. We then have a guest for the second and third segment of the show, and then we wrap it up with the
00:02:40.920 --> 00:02:47.720 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Dear Artie section, where we take viewers' questions and answer them in a Dear Abby-like fashion.
00:02:47.880 --> 00:03:03.479 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: All the info is on the event page on TeamsSalesDevelopment.com, so if you go there and check out the event page, you'll see it. Really quick, I want to thank Brian Conway for last week's show, episode 6, which was on September 11th.
00:03:03.620 --> 00:03:11.240 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And he talked about how to be a leader slash manager versus a player coach.
00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:17.570 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Many times, a lot of people, and many of you listening, And myself as well.
00:03:17.910 --> 00:03:35.399 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: in your career has been promoted to a management position due to your performance, and then, unfortunately, given no training or guidance on how to really be an effective manager. So, what Brian covered was actionable takeaways that can help you if you're new to the role.
00:03:35.400 --> 00:03:42.300 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: or improve you if you've been in it for a while. So, for example, germane to our discussion today.
00:03:42.430 --> 00:03:56.669 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Brian mentioned that managers need to inspect what they respect, and I love the way he put that, because usually we hear managers should inspect what they expect. So if you expect something, you should inspect it.
00:03:56.670 --> 00:04:05.509 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: But I love the way that Brian put it, was to inspect what they respect, with the idea being is to not just sort of tell the team what to do.
00:04:05.510 --> 00:04:15.300 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: But respect where the team's coming from. You know, you've walked in their shoes before, probably, and you know what it was like to be told to do something, so respect the team.
00:04:15.300 --> 00:04:27.669 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: and respect what you want the team to do, and help them understand why the information or the action is needed, and then they will be more likely to do it. And so when you inspect it.
00:04:27.670 --> 00:04:42.490 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: you're inspecting what you respect, or what you expect them to respect, right? So that's going to come into play during our CRM discussion today, as oftentimes demands are made on sales teams by management.
00:04:42.490 --> 00:04:52.490 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: that only seems to benefit management, and yet the CRM system, and again, if anybody isn't familiar with that, the Customer Relation Management System.
00:04:52.540 --> 00:05:01.770 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Is what really should be driving all that, but unfortunately, oftentimes, the information is not put in there, and management kind of demands it.
00:05:01.810 --> 00:05:13.209 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And then people don't, you know, the salespeople don't respect what the purpose of it is. So that, therefore, leads to the perception that the CRM system sucks.
00:05:13.260 --> 00:05:20.760 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And, if any of you are in businesses that have CRM systems, they should be doing good for you, but maybe you feel similarly.
00:05:20.930 --> 00:05:35.299 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So, the other thing I wanted to mention real quick about Brian was that he offered a complimentary membership to the sales manager Inner Circle, which is a safe place where you can talk shop with other frontline sales managers.
00:05:35.300 --> 00:05:40.980 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: It's chock full of resources and posts designed to encourage and inspire
00:05:41.280 --> 00:05:52.760 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And if you're interested in joining, it's completely complimentary, no strings attached. The link is on the Episode 6 show page, so check that out through your favorite,
00:05:52.850 --> 00:06:03.499 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: podcast platform, or just go to Teamsalesdevelopment.com and take a look at the event page. You'll see the show on there, and you can check out episode 6 and those links.
00:06:03.500 --> 00:06:20.479 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So, again, today we're going to be talking with Chris, and we'll get to him after the break in just a minute, but I just want to set the stage a little bit here. He is the author of the book, CRM Shouldn't Suck, which I have right here. And if any of you are watching the video stream or the recording.
00:06:20.480 --> 00:06:28.110 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: This is the book right here, CRM Shouldn't Suck, and we're going to discuss the pitfalls of CRM implementations.
00:06:28.110 --> 00:06:47.049 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: and then how to implement strategies for success. And why I want to just preview this a little bit is I was thinking about this, and I immediately thought of the old adage, and probably one of my favorite whiteboard diagrams that I've drawn hundreds of times in my workshops over many, many years.
00:06:47.050 --> 00:06:52.210 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: and in seminars that I've delivered. The diagram, imagine a pie chart.
00:06:52.290 --> 00:06:59.230 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: that's divided into 3 equal sections. And in each of the sections, what I write is people.
00:06:59.640 --> 00:07:01.959 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Process and tools.
00:07:02.550 --> 00:07:06.410 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Or, if it's easier for you, imagine a three-legged stool.
00:07:06.760 --> 00:07:14.500 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And again, one leg is people, one leg is process, one leg is tools. And the idea is, is that
00:07:14.850 --> 00:07:30.869 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: In any of those models, if a piece of the pie is defective or missing, or if one of the legs is missing or shorter than the other, that stool's gonna wobble, or fall over, or the pie chart will have a gaping hole in it.
00:07:31.300 --> 00:07:36.429 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So, in organizations where those three components are what drives everything.
00:07:36.590 --> 00:07:49.699 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: your organization is counting on that pie to be full, the stool to be steady, but all too often, one or more of those legs or pieces is defective. And just in general, and then we'll get into specifically,
00:07:50.010 --> 00:08:07.289 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: after the first commercial break, but in general, my job is to help sales organizations have a balanced pie and a steady stool upon which they can conduct their business. And Chris is going to talk about the role that CRM plays in that, in those three areas as well.
00:08:07.690 --> 00:08:22.400 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Now, just to set the stage here a little more, there are some ways that this, you know, some deficiencies, if you will, may manifest themselves in a sales organization, and maybe you can use this as a quick checklist, just at a very, very, very broad level.
00:08:22.640 --> 00:08:41.240 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: For example, for people, it might be, and this is what my book is all about, is pre-sales and sales not being aligned, not knowing how to work together seamlessly, or maybe they haven't been trained on the right things, or they don't know enough about what each other is doing.
00:08:41.610 --> 00:08:59.570 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: They may feel unmotivated to do what they need to do, or because there's too much management overhead, or they feel bogged down by unqualified deals or improper discovery. So there's a lot of people issues involved with sales organizations, and after all, the people are what make it work, right?
00:09:00.090 --> 00:09:04.580 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: The solution to this part of it is going to be proper training.
00:09:04.730 --> 00:09:13.359 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Workshops, seminars, sales kickoffs, and other things like that to help them work together seamlessly and keep that stool steady, or make that pie full.
00:09:13.830 --> 00:09:26.719 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: The second piece, process, in a sales organization might look like sales methods that aren't in place or may not be followed. Maybe they're misused or misunderstood.
00:09:26.830 --> 00:09:32.579 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Just a quick, you know, think about this if any of you are in sales positions, you know, how many of you
00:09:32.580 --> 00:09:57.390 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: know what your sales process is and the significance of the sales process. It's not just there for the sake of it being there, it's there to help you with what you're trying to do. Also, think about, the buyer's process. How many know how to focus on the buyer's process? I've talked about this before in my other episodes, that oftentimes, when I ask and I show the buying process and the sales process.
00:09:57.720 --> 00:10:08.680 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: almost everybody answers about where they're at in the sales process. Almost nobody answers where they're at in the buying process, and it just happened again this week when I did a workshop for a client.
00:10:08.680 --> 00:10:18.549 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So, what do we know about the buyer process and being laser-focused on making the client successful? And some of you may have sales methodologies that
00:10:18.580 --> 00:10:29.020 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: you know, maybe are somewhat helpful, or maybe you're just forced to follow that don't seem to do you any good. So, you reluctantly comply sometimes when your manager
00:10:29.020 --> 00:10:40.240 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: asks you to put the information in, those are all broken processes. They're a part of the pie, or a leg of the stool, that's not helping to keep everything steady.
00:10:40.260 --> 00:10:48.330 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So, my model for sales is that if a process or method that you are
00:10:48.330 --> 00:11:06.690 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: trying to use, or that you've been told to use, or taught to use, doesn't help you sell, then either it isn't being used right, or it isn't needed. And again, in my workshop this week, when I was going through the sales methodology and the CRM tool that's integrated with that, I emphasized over and over again.
00:11:06.690 --> 00:11:17.570 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: If you're using this and it doesn't seem to be helping you, then it might not be needed, because maybe the deal isn't that complicated, or that part of it isn't going to be helpful for you, and that's fine.
00:11:17.570 --> 00:11:28.680 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Or, maybe it isn't being used correctly, so make sure you're getting help. But in any event, the processes should be there to help with the overall organization and how sales works together.
00:11:29.090 --> 00:11:36.249 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: The third leg, or the third part of the pie, then, is the tools. So we got people, process, and tools.
00:11:36.480 --> 00:11:42.259 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Tools is that it's really not just about the tool, it's how you use it.
00:11:42.510 --> 00:12:01.649 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And sometime, if I have time, maybe I'll just do a separate podcast on this, or a separate little recording, is the story of a fellow who had a bunch of dead trees in his backyard, and unfortunately, he got the right tool, but he didn't use it correctly, and so even if you have a tool that might be the right tool.
00:12:01.810 --> 00:12:21.260 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: knowing how to use it is super important, and if it's not used correctly, that can do more damage than good. In fact, the… not only is the moral that you have to know how to use the tool, and that the tool can't do it by itself, sometimes I feel like if the tool is used wrong.
00:12:21.490 --> 00:12:33.210 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: or the tool itself is wrong, it's worse trying to use it than not using it at all. In other words, that tool gets in the way, and we'll talk about that when it comes to the CRM systems. So.
00:12:33.500 --> 00:12:54.380 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: when it comes to tools, same thing for sales. You know, what tools are in place? Why are they there? Again, inspect what you respect. The tools should have a purpose for them. They should be explained, they should be helpful to sales. If there's something that's getting in the way of somebody selling, that's not a tool that's helpful. So either retool it, fix it, replace it, append it.
00:12:54.380 --> 00:12:57.190 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Whatever's needed, but help that to work correctly.
00:12:57.550 --> 00:13:03.619 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So, when we come back from the break, we're gonna be talking with Chris about
00:13:03.760 --> 00:13:06.550 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: why CRMs are, you know.
00:13:06.650 --> 00:13:19.549 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: problematic in some cases. He works with companies to help them from implementation, but even after they have implementation, when it's, not quite working correctly, and helps to get them back on track.
00:13:19.560 --> 00:13:32.440 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And so we're gonna touch into the idea of the people, process, and tools specific to CRM systems. And then for any of you that are in an individual contributor role, in a sales role, or I know that, you know.
00:13:32.590 --> 00:13:41.919 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Many of you are using a CRM system like Salesforce, or Dynamics or other things for ERP, or manufacturing resource planning, or
00:13:41.920 --> 00:13:56.630 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: other types of things. Most of these concepts will apply as well. We're going to focus a little bit more on the sales and the sales management aspects, but everybody can take something away when it comes to the way that you're trying to use your tools in your environment.
00:13:56.980 --> 00:13:57.910 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So…
00:13:58.100 --> 00:14:14.050 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: that's going to be the topic of the day, and as we get ready to go to the break, I just want to remind you again, tune in on your favorite podcast channel. We are on many different things, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter.
00:14:14.140 --> 00:14:23.479 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Twitch, never knew what Twitch was until I knew that we were broadcasting on there, and then all the other sources, so check it out, watch the replays, like it.
00:14:23.690 --> 00:14:24.599 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Share it.
00:14:24.840 --> 00:14:41.180 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: subscribe, and please comment today during the session if you're live. Jesse will be watching for comments, and you can put those in during the break where you're calling from, and if you have any questions for us, please let us know. So we'll be back in about 2 minutes with Chris Smith.
00:16:52.370 --> 00:17:02.560 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Alright, everybody, welcome back, welcome back, and today I would like to welcome our guest, our special guest, Chris Smith.
00:17:02.780 --> 00:17:12.299 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Chris is a seasoned leader with nearly 40 years in CRM and business solutions. After building and selling his first company, he founded Impeller CRM.
00:17:12.339 --> 00:17:20.379 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: to help organizations finally make their CRM work the way that they should. And I love the emphasis on finally make, because it does take
00:17:20.380 --> 00:17:39.700 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Take some effort. He drives adoption, alignment with business goals, and unlocks the real insights that are what a CRM system should do. Chris is also the host of the Sales Lead Dog podcast, where he brings sales leaders together to share practical strategies and hard-won lessons. In his new book, CRM Shouldn't Suck.
00:17:39.840 --> 00:17:50.290 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: He distills that experience into a guide for avoiding common pitfalls and turning CRM to a true growth engine. So, welcome, Chris, to the show.
00:17:51.550 --> 00:17:53.500 Christopher Smith: Art, it is great to be here.
00:17:53.500 --> 00:18:08.659 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Hey, look, everybody, you know, Chris and I first met when we were at the DynamicsCon CRM conference by Microsoft in Chicago in May. And Chris had this great booth set up, and it was like a whole black background.
00:18:08.660 --> 00:18:25.499 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And all you could see, if any of you are on the webinar version of this, was this big sign, CRM shouldn't suck. I said, I need to talk to Chris, and I know we're gonna get along great. So we immediately connected and knew we had a common goal of helping sales sell, and
00:18:25.500 --> 00:18:31.239 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: all that. And he also graciously invited me on his Sales Lead Dog podcast in June, so…
00:18:31.240 --> 00:18:33.699 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: You could check out our discussion on the lead
00:18:33.850 --> 00:18:36.599 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: sales dog podcast as well. So…
00:18:36.850 --> 00:18:46.040 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Welcome, Chris. I guess let's start out, as usual, with, briefly how you got to where you are, and, you know, what the current focus is.
00:18:46.190 --> 00:18:54.090 Christopher Smith: Yeah, I'm really passionate about leveraging technology to drive execution.
00:18:54.640 --> 00:18:59.959 Christopher Smith: you know, with our customers. You mentioned it before, a tool. You talked about a tool.
00:19:00.220 --> 00:19:05.800 Christopher Smith: CRM, that's all it is. It's a tool, right? But you have to be able to use it correctly.
00:19:05.970 --> 00:19:24.050 Christopher Smith: to reap the benefits of this tool. So many people go in to CRM thinking, it's gonna solve all my problems, it's gonna fix my bad sales process, or it's gonna fix bad data, or whatever problems you are… that you're facing in your business as a sales leader or an owner.
00:19:24.180 --> 00:19:34.719 Christopher Smith: That's not what CRM does. CRM, if it's done correctly, it enables your business, it enables your people to drive execution on your strategic goals.
00:19:35.300 --> 00:19:36.999 Christopher Smith: That's what we're chasing, right?
00:19:37.320 --> 00:19:49.239 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Yeah, absolutely. And as a matter of fact, and this can get into some of the things that you… one of the first things you talk about in your book is 20 reasons, you know, why,
00:19:49.240 --> 00:20:00.780 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: the CRM system frequently does suck, and among other things is, as you say, somebody implements it thinking that it is a solution to a problem when it's the enabler to help them with managing what they're doing.
00:20:00.780 --> 00:20:04.649 Christopher Smith: And one of the first things I… or one of the key things I know you talk about is.
00:20:04.650 --> 00:20:21.969 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: the classic garbage in, garbage out, which we… some of us that have been around long enough remember that from the database years of old, when you're taking manual stuff from whatever you had, and you're putting it into a database, and you had to make sure the data was clean going in. So maybe that might be a starting point, but I know there's
00:20:21.970 --> 00:20:30.769 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: 20 other things that we could talk about that are featured in your book. Maybe we'll hit on a couple of those in terms of what are some of the reasons that CRMs suck.
00:20:31.380 --> 00:20:40.229 Christopher Smith: Yeah, I was just at a conference, I flew back late on Wednesday, and I was talking to the VP of sales of a very large company.
00:20:40.610 --> 00:20:48.449 Christopher Smith: And he pulls out his phone, he's going, Chris, you want to see my pipeline? I'm like, sure. He pulled up an Excel spreadsheet on his pipeline.
00:20:49.420 --> 00:21:00.659 Christopher Smith: And they're using a very well-known CRM platform, but he's like, Chris, it is horrible. It is doing nothing to help me or my sales team.
00:21:01.080 --> 00:21:04.710 Christopher Smith: And so, I don't care what size business you are.
00:21:04.940 --> 00:21:10.790 Christopher Smith: That's not what drives whether you're successful or not. There are very large companies out there struggling with CRM,
00:21:10.900 --> 00:21:20.140 Christopher Smith: And because of this lack of connection between, and I think fundamental misunderstanding of what CRM is really about.
00:21:20.310 --> 00:21:31.069 Christopher Smith: And so, therefore, so many people are struggling with it, and that's why I wrote the book. It shouldn't be that way. You know, I've been doing this, you know, Impeller's been around for almost 20 years, and our very first project was a rescue.
00:21:31.070 --> 00:21:44.339 Christopher Smith: We've been doing rescues ever since. We're really, really good because of our methodology at rescuing CRMs that are failing to meet goals, failing to meet those expectations you have when you started this CRM journey.
00:21:44.580 --> 00:22:02.059 Christopher Smith: And I finally, I'm like, just… why are we keep seeing the same stuff over and over again? This is crazy. And so that's why I wrote the book, Hoping to Help People. And so my goal is to give away 2,000 copies of this book. You can buy it on Amazon, but be smart, get it from me for free.
00:22:02.460 --> 00:22:17.529 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: There you go. Awesome. Well, that's a great offer. And so we'll cover this at the end as well, in terms of how they can get that, and the contact information and everything like that. So we'll… we'll save that as a little teaser, so there you go. Three books. Love it.
00:22:17.530 --> 00:22:27.049 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Another… and you can pick some of these too, but some of them that jumped out at me is that the CRM is not properly used as the hub of business.
00:22:27.050 --> 00:22:27.710 Christopher Smith: That's right.
00:22:28.150 --> 00:22:33.559 Christopher Smith: We see that a lot. People think CRM is just for the sales team, or just for the sales and marketing teams.
00:22:34.560 --> 00:22:40.309 Christopher Smith: Think about the customer relation. That's the CR in CRM. It's Customer Relationship Management.
00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:43.550 Christopher Smith: Your relationship begins when the deal is won.
00:22:43.680 --> 00:22:57.639 Christopher Smith: And now it needs to be managed, so that's maybe, at most, 20% of the life cycle of a customer. You know, if you're really going after customers and driving lifelong adoption where you want to be with them a very long time. So that means…
00:22:57.760 --> 00:23:07.679 Christopher Smith: you need to extend, to really drive ROI with CRM, you need to extend it throughout your organization. Anyone who's involved with the customer.
00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:19.879 Christopher Smith: or driving execution on your strategic goals should be in CRM. It should be the central hub of your business connecting all your core systems, your operational systems, your finance systems, whatever it may be.
00:23:20.080 --> 00:23:29.890 Christopher Smith: They should all… there's not a better platform to be that central hub of your business other than CRM, because it's all about the customer. That's why we're in business. We're in business to serve customers.
00:23:29.910 --> 00:23:48.739 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Exactly, yeah, it's all about customer success, and what I always advocate, and it goes back to what I was talking about earlier, where even with sales, which is happening, you know, upstream, of a signed customer who's implementing, but sales gets them there, even with sales, there's…
00:23:49.010 --> 00:23:54.579 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: More to the left of that, which is the buyer and the buyer process, and what the buyer
00:23:54.620 --> 00:24:14.390 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: The client, call them whatever you want, the prospect, has perhaps already touched some parts of some of those systems that you mentioned, like the company's website, or now with demo automation, they've gone in and looked at things, and boy, if you could capture that data, imagine how great that is to have one view
00:24:14.390 --> 00:24:28.779 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: of wherever that person entered the process, and then what the breadcrumbs were that eventually, when salespeople got involved with it, they started talking with them. So… I love that example. I love that example, Art.
00:24:28.780 --> 00:24:33.480 Christopher Smith: You know, that's a great one that, hey, if they're interacting with your website.
00:24:33.650 --> 00:24:36.570 Christopher Smith: That should be triggering action by your sales team.
00:24:37.110 --> 00:24:53.140 Christopher Smith: That should be triggering engagement by your sales team. And so often, we rarely see that when we come in and start working with a client, but that's the kind of stuff we're talking about when you have a properly implemented tool. This tool should be driving action by your sales team.
00:24:53.320 --> 00:24:55.719 Christopher Smith: And that was a great example, I love that.
00:24:56.070 --> 00:25:14.659 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Yeah, well, and you know, I think it's easy to call it low-hanging fruit, because you and I can see that pretty easily, and that's where you come in, is to help them find some of that low-hanging fruit, that it's like… and that might not be the exact one, but there's others that could be. And I think it's a lot of… and I run into this all the time, and we do is…
00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:16.479 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: People don't know what they don't know.
00:25:16.480 --> 00:25:21.489 Christopher Smith: Right. I mentioned on another show, or some of the talks that I do, is that.
00:25:21.490 --> 00:25:29.269 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: We have the expression that the customer's always right, and they aren't always right, because they don't know what they don't know. Now, we're gonna make them right.
00:25:29.320 --> 00:25:41.660 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: We're gonna help them through that process. We're gonna expand what their idea is, but a lot of sales organizations or people that have the CRM has this great engine sitting there, and they're not using it for what it could be.
00:25:42.130 --> 00:25:46.459 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So that brings us to another, another topic, and sorry, I'm kind of…
00:25:46.610 --> 00:26:02.839 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: feeding these to you, because I was just… I mean, I have, you know, many of them earmarked in the book already, but I think lack of adoption in general, so this gets into some of the people and the process part of it too, in addition to, obviously, the tool that's being implemented.
00:26:02.840 --> 00:26:14.659 Christopher Smith: Yeah, like, that VP of Sales that I was talking with just a couple of days ago is a great example of none of the… the sales team's not using it. They spent a lot of money. The company spent…
00:26:14.710 --> 00:26:24.060 Christopher Smith: easily a million dollars to implement this CRM. You know, it's a global company, you know, so they probably spend millions of dollars implementing this CRM. Salespeople aren't using it.
00:26:24.200 --> 00:26:29.070 Christopher Smith: I'm talking to them, they're like, Chris, it does not help us. It actually slows me down.
00:26:29.070 --> 00:26:29.510 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Right.
00:26:29.510 --> 00:26:39.910 Christopher Smith: You know, and so you think about that in terms of, you know, I spent this… I made this major investment to empower my sales team
00:26:39.910 --> 00:26:57.919 Christopher Smith: And we fell on our face. It's not empowering them. It's a 2,000-pound anchor that they're dragging behind them, and usually what ends up happening is you've got a sales leader saying, hey, make sure you get your updates into CRM by the end of the week, so I could run my reports to update my bosses
00:26:57.960 --> 00:26:59.400 Christopher Smith: On Monday.
00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:11.089 Christopher Smith: That's not adding value to the organization. That's where it's kind of a Big Brother-type scenario. And, you know, so what you're getting in CRM is the absolute bare minimum.
00:27:11.250 --> 00:27:17.660 Christopher Smith: There's no data in there that has value, there's no insight in there that has value, because it's not helping the sales team.
00:27:18.170 --> 00:27:26.839 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Yeah, yeah, and so, just before we get to the commercial here in a couple minutes, let's talk a little bit more about some of those negative implications. So.
00:27:26.840 --> 00:27:39.619 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: the investment wasn't fully utilized, the frustration of the people, the frustration of management, and the danger of that bad data being in there. What are some other negative implications that…
00:27:39.690 --> 00:27:42.450 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Also can be brought on by this.
00:27:42.450 --> 00:27:56.549 Christopher Smith: Well, think about all the downstream decisions that have to be made based upon data that's in CRM. It impacts your hiring, it impacts purchasing, it's impacting in all kinds of areas, you know, and if your data is incomplete.
00:27:56.550 --> 00:28:02.500 Christopher Smith: If it's, you know, just the bare minimum, how good are those decisions, those downstream decisions?
00:28:02.750 --> 00:28:12.610 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Yeah, and one of the big downstream decisions is gonna be predict… predictability, especially for publicly traded companies, to say what their projections are for the…
00:28:12.610 --> 00:28:26.259 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: you know, their earnings and all that stuff, and that can affect the share price and all kinds of things, so the implications are huge, and I think that the purity of the data and the misapplication or passive… passively compliant use, whatever you want to call it.
00:28:26.260 --> 00:28:31.409 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: We need to flip that around. And I would just add to that one other thing, is that
00:28:31.410 --> 00:28:54.990 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: because, and especially focusing on the sales part of it, which we'll talk a little bit more after the break, the focusing on the sales part, sales teams only have a short, you know, maybe 17% of the entire buying cycle is with the actual person. Well, if you have the system with all the proper stuff that's in there already, you can quickly find out and understand what's going on, and you can then document it
00:28:54.990 --> 00:29:12.970 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: for the downstream usage. And guess what? If they're in the CRM already, and if they like what the CRM is doing for them, now that data is going to be real, it's going to be objective, it's going to be live. But that's a… that's a big thing to cover, which we'll talk more about that after the break, and ways that Chris and I are
00:29:12.970 --> 00:29:21.570 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: working to try to turn that around. So we'll go to the break now, and when we come back, we'll dig into that deeper as far as, okay, what's the solution, and what are the benefits that could come from it?
00:31:22.300 --> 00:31:41.660 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: All right, everybody, welcome back, and we're talking with Chris Smith, who is the author of CRMs Shouldn't Suck, and we just talked about, you know, what the situation is, why customer relation management systems should be helpful, and are intended to be helpful, and unfortunately, in many cases, are
00:31:41.690 --> 00:31:52.810 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Not so helpful, or even causing some damage, and the implications of that. What I want to do now, Chris, is, come back to… if you want to
00:31:53.200 --> 00:31:56.820 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Come back, I don't see you for a moment here. Jesse, is Chris on there?
00:31:56.820 --> 00:31:57.500 Christopher Smith: I am.
00:31:57.500 --> 00:32:11.339 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Yeah, there you are, there you are. So what I want to just talk about now is, okay, so anybody that's got this situation, or wants to even improve from where they're at, because I think there's always continuous improvement as well. Yes.
00:32:11.340 --> 00:32:29.549 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Talk a little bit about the methodology, and for those of you that are on the video stream, it's on page 33 in Chris's book. He's got a whole methodology here that he uses, and, you know, a couple things, and you could talk about that specifically, but some things that jumped out at me was.
00:32:29.690 --> 00:32:41.469 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: the idea of, you know, the process review, for example. So, but you could start wherever you want. Tell us about your methodology, and the way that that works, and what you uncover as a result of that.
00:32:41.840 --> 00:32:44.690 Christopher Smith: Yeah, so the way I explain this is…
00:32:44.820 --> 00:32:56.100 Christopher Smith: you have to look at… anytime you're doing any kind of a major system implementation, such as CRM, and this applies for ERP or any other significant system you may be using in your business.
00:32:57.670 --> 00:33:04.899 Christopher Smith: You have to look at your entire business and where this piece of technology's gonna fit as part of the puzzle.
00:33:05.370 --> 00:33:20.569 Christopher Smith: If your business is chaos, if you really take a hard look at it and you realize, like, man, this is the Wild West, you know, we have a lot of workarounds, a lot of manual processes, people are kind of struggling, and now I'm gonna embed CRM in the middle of that.
00:33:20.820 --> 00:33:24.569 Christopher Smith: Eventually, that chaos is gonna consume CRM.
00:33:24.700 --> 00:33:34.699 Christopher Smith: And so that's really what… it really increases dramatically the risk of failure in CRM, because everything around it is chaos.
00:33:34.950 --> 00:33:42.320 Christopher Smith: You know, so for example, you know, I'mma just briefly run through the 6 areas. Strategic goals.
00:33:42.360 --> 00:33:58.389 Christopher Smith: There's not a better platform out there to drive strategic goals, the execution on your goals, than CRM. And so we want to align CRM to support whatever you're doing to move the needle for your business, which growing revenue is usually number one.
00:33:58.390 --> 00:34:15.649 Christopher Smith: So, for example, hey, we want to launch new products, we want to launch new services, we want to go into a new market. Well, you better have CRM set up to support that with the appropriate data, the appropriate processes, the insight into measuring how are we doing with all of that.
00:34:15.989 --> 00:34:31.229 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: By the way, Chris, correct me if I'm wrong, but here, it seems definitely like it's one of those eyes-wide open things where let CRM be the bar that you're trying to achieve, and help you to do whatever's necessary to make it work, as opposed to throwing it in and hope it fixes, like what you said.
00:34:31.230 --> 00:34:44.350 Christopher Smith: Exactly, exactly. I frequently tell executives, CRM, when it's done correctly, is its own business strategy. Right. It's not technology. It is a business strategy all on its own.
00:34:44.350 --> 00:34:54.090 Christopher Smith: The next thing is culture. It's because, again, you're gonna have people using this. You really have to understand the culture and the people that you have.
00:34:54.090 --> 00:35:14.170 Christopher Smith: Maybe you have a lot of, like, older salespeople that maybe aren't all that thrilled with technology. That's… that's very common. I'm, you know, I do CRM, and I'm… I'm actually not a tech guy. You know, I'm not one of those early adopters of technology. You know, so there's a lot of people out there like me, and you have to understand that.
00:35:14.170 --> 00:35:23.359 Christopher Smith: So what's our plan to make sure we're supporting them and getting them to adopt CRM? Because we want them to use it, because it's going to enable them and help them be better in their jobs.
00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:26.189 Christopher Smith: Yeah, and that's that people part of the stool, right?
00:35:26.190 --> 00:35:38.479 Christopher Smith: Yeah, exactly. And then process review is critical. CRM, again, can enable all the core processes within your business around the customer.
00:35:38.570 --> 00:35:55.399 Christopher Smith: You know, in the handoffs between teams, you know, so when sales is closing a deal, now you gotta pass it off to customer success, or delivery, or operations, whatever you may call it in your business. You want to make sure all that information is flowing, is being captured in detail during the sales process.
00:35:55.400 --> 00:36:01.010 Christopher Smith: That they're being brought in at the appropriate time to ensure a seamless handoff.
00:36:01.010 --> 00:36:12.939 Christopher Smith: And that all that data is flowing throughout the organization without manual workarounds, without the Excel spreadsheets. That's one of the things we want to know when we come in. Show me all your Excel spreadsheets.
00:36:12.940 --> 00:36:23.769 Christopher Smith: That you're using to run your business, because every one of those is a workaround, because your technology is not supporting the business. But I still have to get my work done, so I'm gonna create a spreadsheet for me to use.
00:36:24.220 --> 00:36:31.489 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Chris, is that where the… where you would expose, you know, if there is a sales methodology, and to what degree it's being used, and.
00:36:31.490 --> 00:36:32.229 Christopher Smith: Oh, yeah.
00:36:32.230 --> 00:36:36.120 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Yeah, that's critical, that's absolutely critical.
00:36:36.180 --> 00:36:44.449 Christopher Smith: You know, like, for example, like, with what you've been able to do, Art, with your sales process and embedded in CRM, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
00:36:44.550 --> 00:36:52.689 Christopher Smith: You know, that it has to be embedded in the tool, it has to become part of their… everything we're talking about here,
00:36:52.950 --> 00:37:00.819 Christopher Smith: But it's key to driving things in an efficient, optimal way. That's what we're looking for. What's the best way we can do this?
00:37:00.820 --> 00:37:16.079 Christopher Smith: And it's never going to stop. You know, it's not like, hey, we did this and we're done. You constantly have to come back. This is a loop. When you look at our methodology, it's a circle, because we never want to stop looking at this stuff. It's always about continuous improvement. Where can we get better?
00:37:16.080 --> 00:37:18.809 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Yeah. Data is your foundation.
00:37:18.810 --> 00:37:29.860 Christopher Smith: That's our fourth element. It's absolutely critical to have good data. If your data… if you have data issues, and all the… everything else you do is not gonna matter, no one's gonna trust the platform.
00:37:29.870 --> 00:37:39.039 Christopher Smith: You have to address your data, and we talk… we give some very pragmatic, recommendations on how you can address your data issues in the book.
00:37:39.090 --> 00:37:54.269 Christopher Smith: Because it's fundamental. We see this all the time, garbage in, garbage out. People… it's slowing people down, they're making bad decisions, it impacts the bottom line in so many ways, and it's a hidden… and oftentimes, it's a hidden cost.
00:37:54.350 --> 00:37:59.850 Christopher Smith: Because nobody's measuring that. What is the impact of this bad data on our business? Nobody measures that.
00:37:59.850 --> 00:38:15.659 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Yeah, well, and among other things, what I see there, too, is that oftentimes that's why they call it a sales funnel, because the data is bad, and that means that you don't know until the end that things weren't supposed to be in there. Yeah. And it's better to figure it out up front, and make sure you've got the right data.
00:38:15.660 --> 00:38:25.099 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And if… and I'm talking about not just the data itself, but what you decide to put in there, what opportunities you choose to pursue, it's pervasive throughout. You cannot.
00:38:25.100 --> 00:38:25.490 Christopher Smith: Oh, yeah.
00:38:25.490 --> 00:38:27.620 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: yourself into thinking that it's okay.
00:38:27.620 --> 00:38:34.180 Christopher Smith: Yeah, like, are we targeting the right people at the right time? You know, where are people falling out of our sales process, and why?
00:38:34.180 --> 00:38:38.559 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: You know, being able to support those retrospectives on lost deals.
00:38:38.590 --> 00:38:43.159 Christopher Smith: If that data's not in CRM, you're not gonna get a very productive retrospective.
00:38:43.160 --> 00:38:43.720 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Yep.
00:38:43.930 --> 00:38:59.700 Christopher Smith: Yeah. Execution assessment. This one's really important. I learned a long time ago, before I did CRM, I used to do ERP implementations, which is, you can't think of a more disruptive implementation to a business than an ERP implementation, and
00:39:00.770 --> 00:39:04.379 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And for everybody that might not know, enterprise resource planning, so we're talking… That's right.
00:39:04.380 --> 00:39:18.469 Christopher Smith: Right, that's right. So those are the financial systems. It combines finance and operations to run a… to run a business, you know, usually in manufacturing, but a lot of companies will use different forms of ERP as well. More on the finance side, but…
00:39:18.650 --> 00:39:35.670 Christopher Smith: very disruptive, very big, very expensive implementations. You need to make sure, when you're starting out on your CRM journey, do we have the capacity? Do we have the right people? Do they have the bandwidth to support this implementation? That's one of the things, when I sell CRM, I want to know.
00:39:35.740 --> 00:39:39.740 Christopher Smith: are the people that I need gonna be available to us?
00:39:39.810 --> 00:39:48.099 Christopher Smith: to help us make the right decisions and guide this implementation internally. Absolutely and critical. Like, you… I've seen it…
00:39:48.110 --> 00:40:03.379 Christopher Smith: when I was doing ERP, where they would give us a team, and it was usually the people, like, oh, I don't need Joe, I can sacrifice Joe, he's not that important to our team, so Joe's gonna be part of the ERP implementation. Well, there's a reason why Joe's not that important. He doesn't know anything about the business, right?
00:40:03.380 --> 00:40:16.129 Christopher Smith: I don't want Joe. I want the person who knows the must, you know, the most about that specific department or area. Those… I want the rock stars to be part of the team, right? But those people are usually really, really busy.
00:40:16.180 --> 00:40:23.110 Christopher Smith: So… but it's… it's… there's ways to do this where it still works. And then technology review. CRM…
00:40:23.110 --> 00:40:39.600 Christopher Smith: is going to be part of your overall ecosystem. It's going to be a core part of your overall ecosystem. So one of the things we want to do is make sure that you, you know, there aren't any other gaps in your technology landscape, or that maybe there are certain areas that, hey, once we get Serum in place.
00:40:39.600 --> 00:40:50.169 Christopher Smith: these applications can go away. We're not going to need anymore. They were point solutions that you needed at a given time, but now that you're going to this new landscape.
00:40:50.190 --> 00:41:00.199 Christopher Smith: We can replace that with one system instead of having three data silos. We want to eliminate those and bring it all together to create that single source of truth around the customer.
00:41:01.090 --> 00:41:06.229 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Yeah, eliminate the swivel chair of, do something in this system, do something in this.
00:41:06.230 --> 00:41:15.150 Christopher Smith: Oh, yeah, no, it's crazy. We see that all the time. We had one client, they literally were having people timekeep in 3 different systems.
00:41:15.150 --> 00:41:15.670 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Ugh.
00:41:16.260 --> 00:41:24.109 Christopher Smith: You imagine how angry that, or frustrated that makes your people when they have to do their time reporting in 3 different systems? It's nuts.
00:41:24.460 --> 00:41:31.920 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And… and I don't hear you saying that fixing any of this is trivial. That's key to this. We're not saying, oh, why haven't you fixed it already?
00:41:31.920 --> 00:41:33.080 Christopher Smith: No, it's not.
00:41:33.080 --> 00:41:34.330 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: It's a big. It's a big…
00:41:34.330 --> 00:41:43.649 Christopher Smith: But it can be… some of it, some of the stuff we see is trivial. You know, like, we had one client that they were paying an engineer
00:41:43.960 --> 00:42:02.510 Christopher Smith: full-time to generate Word documents disclosing the hazardous material content of the components, electronics components that you were manufacturing. So they get a request from a company, hey, we need to know what's in this. He would go do the research, he'd write up a Word document, and he would send out an email.
00:42:03.900 --> 00:42:11.349 Christopher Smith: They had all that stuff in a database that he was searching, and we're like, we could set up an automation
00:42:11.680 --> 00:42:22.400 Christopher Smith: to send that out, we know, in CRM and your ERP system, when we connect these, we know what every… every product, every customer's purchased.
00:42:22.810 --> 00:42:37.050 Christopher Smith: And so we can, when something changes in how we're manufacturing a product, we can go and query and find out who's got all these. We're gonna send you automatically an updated document showing the, the hazardous materials used in that component.
00:42:37.270 --> 00:42:41.100 Christopher Smith: And it's 100% automated, and now that engineer
00:42:41.290 --> 00:42:51.909 Christopher Smith: cannot go do something that's adding value to the business. You know, that… I mean, we say… and that automation, I'm not kidding you, it took us less than a day to set that up.
00:42:52.190 --> 00:42:56.220 Christopher Smith: You know, no, it's insane that we see that kind of stuff all the time.
00:42:56.400 --> 00:43:05.140 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Yeah, and then add into that, you know, what AI can do and everything else, and now there's a lot of that built into the CRM systems that can also be leveraged.
00:43:05.380 --> 00:43:12.010 Christopher Smith: This is what I am most excited about in the 20 years I've been doing CRM, is what
00:43:12.520 --> 00:43:16.279 Christopher Smith: specifically Microsoft is doing with AI.
00:43:16.460 --> 00:43:26.329 Christopher Smith: Full disclosure, my company, we implement Microsoft Dynamics 365, and we implement Salesforce. And there's a reason why I talk about this in the book, why we implement only those two systems.
00:43:26.510 --> 00:43:38.639 Christopher Smith: They are the leaders, okay? And we work with, you know, companies that truly want to enable their entire business. So there's a lot of CRMs out there that will work very well for other businesses, but.
00:43:39.140 --> 00:43:49.229 Christopher Smith: There's a reason why we made those two. Well, Microsoft has truly separated themselves with what they're doing with AI. Specifically, they call their product Copilot.
00:43:49.690 --> 00:43:52.219 Christopher Smith: It is blowing my mind.
00:43:52.440 --> 00:43:59.900 Christopher Smith: in what they're able to do with CRM, and so I want everyone to understand that's listening.
00:44:00.350 --> 00:44:07.999 Christopher Smith: The CRM you're using today Within 3 years, at most, maybe 5 years at most.
00:44:08.160 --> 00:44:14.160 Christopher Smith: We're gonna look at the CRMs we're using today the same way we look at Goldmine from 20 years ago.
00:44:14.350 --> 00:44:18.480 Christopher Smith: That, like, oh gosh, do you remember when we used, you know.
00:44:18.870 --> 00:44:22.309 Christopher Smith: such and such, and now what we're doing…
00:44:23.290 --> 00:44:32.919 Christopher Smith: AI is truly gonna deliver all these promises companies have been making about CRM for the past couple of decades, now it's truly gonna become real.
00:44:33.270 --> 00:44:38.779 Christopher Smith: I'll give you an example. This was something I… I had a sales meeting last week.
00:44:39.050 --> 00:44:44.650 Christopher Smith: Over Teams, you know, we're all selling virtually, or a lot of businesses transacted virtually these days.
00:44:44.800 --> 00:44:52.039 Christopher Smith: At the conclusion of that meeting, I opened up Copilot for Sales. It had a full summary of our entire discussion.
00:44:52.050 --> 00:45:11.469 Christopher Smith: And I had a button there, do you want this in email? Click the button, goes into email, I make some edits, add some personalization to it, that email's out, and all that information's in CRM. Very detailed notes, way better than I would have captured on my own, or tried to remember at 8 o'clock that evening, trying to recreate my day in CRM.
00:45:11.470 --> 00:45:11.840 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Yeah.
00:45:13.290 --> 00:45:28.089 Christopher Smith: It captured, hey, you mentioned you were going to send them these 3 things, do you want those to be individual taxed? Yes, yes, yes. Now those follow-up items are created for me to make sure I get those done and nothing's falling through the loops. Oh, you mentioned that, hey, you want to schedule a follow-up meeting for next week?
00:45:28.630 --> 00:45:48.380 Christopher Smith: here's your meeting invite, click a button, that's all sent off. I'm doing that in minutes, and I'm on to my next meeting. I'm not spending my time at the end of the day, or the… or carving out, this is what really drives me crazy, is when I hear clients who say, oh, we take off Friday afternoons for our sales team to update CRM. That means that they're not selling.
00:45:48.380 --> 00:45:50.750 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Right. Well, and imagine… Kind of CRX.
00:45:50.990 --> 00:45:53.250 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Goes back to the data and the everyday usage.
00:45:54.030 --> 00:46:05.750 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So, just wrapping this up then, Chris, real quick, we will have your contact information in the show notes and everything like that, but very quickly, how can people reach you, and how do they get the book?
00:46:06.110 --> 00:46:09.529 Christopher Smith: Go to CRMShouldn'suck.com.
00:46:09.740 --> 00:46:19.689 Christopher Smith: And there, not only can they order a free copy of the book, but they can take a free CRM assessment, where we will tell them, in the context of our methodology.
00:46:20.030 --> 00:46:35.150 Christopher Smith: what's working and what's not working in their CRM. It doesn't take very long, like 10 minutes to take this assessment, and you will get, right away, a PDF, very detailed PDF, detailing what's working and what's not detailing, or working in your… what's working, what's not working in your CRM.
00:46:35.150 --> 00:46:51.090 Christopher Smith: So please do that. You can also contact me through LinkedIn, hit me up over LinkedIn. Love to engage people and talk with them. I truly just want to help people unsuck their CRMs. Happy to talk with anyone on how we can do that.
00:46:51.330 --> 00:47:00.000 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Well, we appreciate it. Thank you for the time. We'll put all that information in the show notes, and we'll catch up again at a later point in time, Chris. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it.
00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:00.729 Christopher Smith: Thank you.
00:48:40.210 --> 00:48:47.279 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Alright, welcome back, everybody, and again, that was an awesome segment there with Chris. I highly recommend that you go back and review it.
00:48:47.800 --> 00:48:55.410 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And check out the show notes. Again, CRMShouldn'tsuck.com is where you can pick up the free book, and also get the assessment.
00:48:55.460 --> 00:49:08.359 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So for the final segment here, we're gonna do the Dear Artie section, where, I'm going to answer some questions that have been submitted, and of course, I picked questions that were
00:49:08.360 --> 00:49:19.980 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: germane to our subject today that were related to what we talked about. So, the first question, and I actually get this a lot in various forms, and this should sound familiar to many of you.
00:49:19.980 --> 00:49:34.489 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: is how can sales teams ensure that their CRM system actually supports their sales methodology instead of becoming another administrative burden? So we talked about that a little bit with Chris, and he helps to identify where those sticking points are.
00:49:34.490 --> 00:49:52.870 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And then what I want to add on to it is that, from a very specific perspective, with what I do, and what I see works, is looking at embedding the methodology inside the CRM. So now Chris covers everything from all the way across, as you heard him talk about.
00:49:52.870 --> 00:49:56.479 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Let's talk a little bit specifically about the sales portion of this.
00:49:56.480 --> 00:50:07.730 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Rather than treating the CRM as a separate system, and now the salespeople don't want to use it, right? So, what I mean by embedding is, I don't mean just having
00:50:08.230 --> 00:50:11.149 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Table or a form that gets filled in.
00:50:11.290 --> 00:50:22.779 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: I am and I was a salesperson. You know, I'm wired probably more as an engineer, so I don't mind writing things out, but I know when it comes to sales, it's often right-brain type people, it's often
00:50:22.780 --> 00:50:34.500 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: brief and simple, and even pictorial or point-and-click type things. So, I would just challenge everybody to take a look at your CRM system and see, is it a bunch of fill-in-the-blank forms?
00:50:34.500 --> 00:50:36.639 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: That are boring and just static.
00:50:36.640 --> 00:50:49.069 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Or is it something that is more alive? Now, what I offer, and it's… Chris mentioned that they support Microsoft Dynamics and also Salesforce, and so do I, and I've been told
00:50:49.070 --> 00:51:05.810 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: from an app perspective, that's kind of crazy. Like, I'm maintaining two different… they're exactly the same app, but on two different platforms, and usually people just do one or the other. But I have clients for both, it looks identical, and here's the difference. So, we built the apps in
00:51:05.820 --> 00:51:19.799 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: first and foremost, based on the sales methodology that we know helps sales sell. So that's the sales methodology, and that's what we started with, is the thing that really works, the mindset, the overall framework.
00:51:19.890 --> 00:51:33.539 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: The tool, quote-unquote, itself, is something that's been around for about 20 years. The methodology has been, too. That's how well-tested it is. The tool originally was a micro… yeah, an Excel spreadsheet.
00:51:33.540 --> 00:51:41.300 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: that looked graphical, but it still just lived on people's laptops, it was done individually, there was nothing tying it back. So.
00:51:41.300 --> 00:51:55.169 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: In 2017, I put that tool into Dynamics, and it's been used ever since. And then last year, I put it into Salesforce, and this client that I just was doing a workshop this week.
00:51:55.200 --> 00:52:14.100 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: they also have gone to that in terms of Salesforce, and I have several others. So, why that's important, and what I'm trying to emphasize is, when you're having sales go in the CRM system to do their stuff, put the methodology first, and make sure everybody buys into the methodology. Now, they will want to be in the CRM system, and if you make it easy to use.
00:52:14.100 --> 00:52:27.649 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Now, it will help… if they see that it helps them sell better, they'll actually be in there, and we avoid the issue of data at the last minute, inaccurate data, data that's not objective, and things like that. Now, why…
00:52:28.110 --> 00:52:41.000 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Why is this important to sales and pre-sales? Because as y'all know, that's a big theme of mine, right? That's why it's called Making Seamless sales, because it's the SE and the AM, pre-sales and sales, working together better.
00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:48.669 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Well, this idea of embedding the proper methodology in the CRM means less garbage in, garbage out.
00:52:49.010 --> 00:53:01.920 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: And that's where the CRM becomes that dreaded administrative task. When it's in there, now the salesperson could put the information in, and the pre-sales person can gather the information that they've already collected.
00:53:01.920 --> 00:53:15.369 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Think about even upstream from that, your demo automation systems, your website, or whatever it is, and collecting that data from the client as they go through. Now, when you go to meet them for the first time.
00:53:15.370 --> 00:53:24.579 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: 57% of the way through their buying process, and for only 17% of the entire time that they're engaged with the buying process.
00:53:24.580 --> 00:53:37.600 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: now you'll have the information ready and available to go ahead and start expanding upon. So, it really… if it's not doing that, then it's not being used properly, and contact Chris and contact me to get some help with it.
00:53:37.910 --> 00:53:38.880 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So…
00:53:39.300 --> 00:53:55.279 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Another, another question related to this is the idea of the biggest missed opportunity with sales and pre-sales collaboration, and I chose this one because it talks about the low-hanging fruit and what we can do, and I do believe that it's that information transfer.
00:53:55.500 --> 00:54:06.090 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: What we've found, what we've learned through various studies is that just taking something like a CRM system and using that properly to help
00:54:06.180 --> 00:54:20.430 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: bring your teams together, and have one source of the truth, and hold each other responsible for creating the information and populating it. That… bringing those teams together, specifically sales and pre-sales.
00:54:20.430 --> 00:54:38.660 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: it can be from 58… sorry, from 15% to 38% improvement in sales results, just by creating something like that. So, method first, then tool that supports the method. I like to say the magic is in the methodology, and the method is in the tool.
00:54:38.680 --> 00:54:51.920 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So I don't want to ever call it a tool, it's a method, it's implemented by a tool, but now that can be used to share all the way across. And I think COVID made this worse, because before, we could capture some of that information over dinner, or, you know, as we
00:54:51.920 --> 00:55:05.280 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: traveled to and from a client site. Now, it relies more and more on the technology to help us. So we've got a pretty strong, maybe, technology leg, although it could be misused. We gotta have the people and process piece to go along with it.
00:55:05.370 --> 00:55:12.620 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So, I'm gonna start wrapping up for today, and I've got more questions I could cover here, but we'll get to those later.
00:55:12.690 --> 00:55:30.299 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: That's gonna do it for today's show. Again, thanks to Chris for sharing the ideas to make sure that CRM doesn't suck. And, again, you can go to CRMShouldn'suck.com to pick up your free book and do the assessment. Like, share, and subscribe to all of the different
00:55:30.300 --> 00:55:43.160 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: methods that you're accessing this, and share it with others, and let them know about it. Next week, please join me when we talk to Jerry Timmis, who is the sales rep that I worked with over 25 years ago.
00:55:43.160 --> 00:56:07.999 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: who is mentioned in the book as the Smiths Industry Story. In fact, let me read a quick quote from the back of the book. This is from Jerry. Jerry said, The Smiths industry story in the book, for which I was the sales rep, was an engagement that would be hugely formative, resulting in a green account manager becoming a seasoned sales executive with Oracle and Salesforce. So, next week.
00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:11.939 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: On the first anniversary of my book being published.
00:56:11.940 --> 00:56:25.949 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Jerry will be with us, so that we can talk about that, relive it, and then see how the rest of his career went in terms of using these things. And honestly, it was a big bedrock of my growth in my career, too, because this was, again.
00:56:25.950 --> 00:56:39.259 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: 27 years ago that that incident happened, that story, and we'll build on that. So, once again, make sure that you check out the book, grab it, the Kindle version with color diagrams is available
00:56:39.260 --> 00:56:46.690 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: for less than the cost of a Venti Frappuccino at Starbucks, just so that you get a comparison. It's like $9.99.
00:56:46.840 --> 00:56:54.750 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: Check out the events page, and other events, including the other talkradio.nyc shows.
00:56:54.750 --> 00:57:09.509 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: and upcoming events, and please get a hold of me. Use the contact form on my website to let me know how I can help you with your sales kickoffs that are coming up, that you're planning for, seminars, other events to improve sales results for your team.
00:57:09.520 --> 00:57:12.810 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: So I offer keynotes, seminars, workshops, and other
00:57:13.140 --> 00:57:24.049 Art Fromm - Team Sales Development: methodologies and tools to help sales sell. Until next week, we'll see you 7pm Eastern. Thanks a lot, everybody. Have a great night, and have a great week to come.
Talking Alternative Broadcasting
392 Central Park West Suite 17R - New York, NY 10025
Privacy Policy · Terms & Conditions
Thank You for Visiting TALKRADIO.NYC © 2022.
