How CRM's Empower Sales Organizations with Ali Schwanke

Episode 22: It’s well known that marketers and salespeople often have a hard time understanding each other’s world. So today, we’ll be discussing the ways in which CRM’s have the ability to bring both teams together so that everyone is operating on the same page.  

Joining Dani, is Ali Schwanke. Ali is the founder and CEO of Simple Strat, a Diamond HubSpot Solutions Partner that helps companies accelerate their growth through technology and content marketing. She's also the host of the popular YouTube series HubSpot Hacks, a channel focused on helping companies get the most out of HubSpot, growing to over 14,000 subscribers and  1 million video views in 2 short years.

Together, Dani and Ali break it all down in a few key areas: 

• The top ways that HubSpot equips people for sales 
• Who should be creating content for sales? 
• And lastly, what would Ali say to a sales team not currently using a CRM? 

CONNECT:

LeadG2: LeadG2: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/
 
Dani Buckley:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/daniobuckley/
About: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/dani-buckley
 
Shaye Smith:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shayesmith/
About: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/shaye-smith

Ali Schwanke:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alischwanke/
Simple Strat: simplestrat.com/
HubSpot Hacks: youtube.com/c/HubSpotHacks

TIMESTAMPS:
(02:21) Marketers have a challenge understanding the sales side of the world and vice versa
(03:36) HubSpot helps bridge marketing and sales teams together
(06:30) Demand Generation Vs. Lead Generation
(07:47) Don't become overwhelmed by all of the content that you could have. Start somewhere
(09:17) Marketers should sit in on sales meetings
(11:29) Sales technology as a house party analogy
(14:47) What are some key criteria you think leaders should be thinking about when deciding what is the best CRM for their organization?
(16:47) People want to trust people before trusting a company

Transcript

Dani Buckley: 0:15

Welcome to Sell Smarter Sell Faster, a podcast dedicated to helping sales organizations grow. Each week, we discuss proven sales enablement strategies and real life examples with experts and thought leaders from across industries. I'm your host, Dani Buckley, Vice President and General Manager at Lead G two, a sales performance agency.

Shaye Smith: 0:41

In this episode, we are covering how CRMs empower sales organizations. It's well known that marketers and sales people often have a hard time understanding each other's world. So today we'll be discussing the ways in which CRM have the ability to bring both teams together so that everyone is operating on the same page. Joining Danny is Ali Schwanke. Ali is the founder and CEO of Simple Strat, a diamond HubSpot solutions partner that helps companies accelerate their growth through technology and content marketing. She's also the host of the popular YouTube series, HubSpot Hacks at Channel, focused on helping companies get the most out of HubSpot, growing to over 14,000 subscribers and 1 million video views in two short years together. Dani and Ali break it all down in a few key areas, the top ways that HubSpot equips people for sales, who should be creating content for sales. And lastly, what would Ali say to a sales team not currently using a CRM? With that, let the conversation begin. Take it away, Dani!

Dani Buckley: 1:48

Awesome. Thank you so much, Shaye. I am so excited to be here with you. Ali, thanks for joining us today.

Ali Schwanke: 1:55

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Dani Buckley: 1:56

Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna cover a lot of different stuff here. You've got a lot of expertise. Um, we, we've been following you on social media. We know all about you, and we're excited to get your insights and tips and best practices and to pass that along to our audience today. So I'm gonna jump in. Um, so just to kinda get everyone on the same page with who you are, can you tell us a little bit about your current role and kind of how your experience contributes to really helping sales organizations and like helping empower them?

Ali Schwanke: 2:21

Sure. I think one of the biggest things that marketers have a challenge with is understanding the sales side of the world and vice versa. You know, we, we'd like to say that we all get along now, but I think that there still is some, you know, kind of of, uh, uh, miscommunications between the two teams. And I think so, so my background is actually leading, um, and supporting sales, and then also running marketing, um, from a marketing director standpoint. So that actually puts me in a really great position now as a HubSpot leader and a person and a voice, um, kind of on the platform to help bring the, both the, the most out of both sides of that. And people most probably know me from my YouTube channel called HubSpot Hacks, where we teach, um, kind of anything and everything on how to use HubSpot. But even just in doing that, one of the things that I've learned is the importance of content being part of the conversation before the sales conversation even starts. And I think that's the piece that most organizations are missing today.

Dani Buckley: 3:13

Yes, I love that. We're just gonna say that again, be part of the conversation before it even starts. Sales folks listen up,<laugh> and marketers. Um, okay. So, you know, I you do have expertise in, in HubSpot. So what are some of the top ways that you like HubSpot equips sales with what they need? Like, what are you kind of most excited to talk about and share on your, on your channel, um, you know, maybe generally or really specific stuff that you might wanna point out?

Ali Schwanke: 3:36

Yeah, absolutely. So there's a lot of features that I love about the platform. I think usually where I start though is I tell people that the best software strategy starts on a whiteboard or a piece of paper or, or whatever. Um, what are the questions that are happening throughout the entire sales cycle on the buying journey before you even engage with them, let's say, with a demo or, or whatever. And I think because HubSpot started as an inbound company and they, they recognized that people were looking for things that they wanted to know before they were part of the sales conversation. The whole entire platform has been built around that idea. So what's, what's happening now, I think is, is there becomes more visibility for us to see how those conversations are happening before the sales person's engaged. So using both marketing and sales together and those features together make that possible. Now, I will say the reason why most folks don't see the benefit out of HubSpot when they first begin, if they're newer to the platform or they don't have a strong sales enablement strategy, is they only know the questions that are being asked in the sales meeting. So if, again, 70 to 80% of the conversation in a sales interview has actually happened already, we need to find out more about what questions they're asking and what, let's say, little pieces of distrust are being solidified out in the marketplace before they get engaged. So things like, um, HubSpot sequences are wonderful. HubSpot sequences completely suck if you have no valuable content to put in front of your, your, um, prospects. So if it's like, I need a meeting, I need a meeting, a meeting, that's not gonna work. So, um, sequences documents are wonderful, but again, we know our information's being tracked. So how do you make sure that the document is valuable enough so that they know that you're gonna see it and that information's going back to them. It's not, it shouldn't just be a PDF with your service offerings. Like there has to be more to that. Um, video tracking sales, personalized videos, those are super effective. Again, you have to not look like a complete idiot on your videos and not just ask for meetings, all of those things. I, I love putting that in sales people's hands and seeing them actually flourish with that.

Dani Buckley: 5:37

Yeah, I mean, it, it, it's, we say this a lot. I'm sure you do. I know we do. Uh, it, I mean, technology can only get you so far, right? Right. It's great. It's important. You need it. It's gonna make everything better. And you've gotta have the strategy, the resources, the content, all the things to go with it, um, to really run it. So, great points. That's really helpful. Um, so let's talk about content. Let's talk about resources for salespeople. What do you think are some of the top things, um, and I know this is kind of a general question, but like, you know, the top pieces that a salesperson should have that that leaders should be thinking about and marketers should be creating for sales, whatever it is. Like what is the stuff that you're seeing really work?

Ali Schwanke: 6:12

Yeah, it kind of depends on where they're entering the sales conversation. So if, if you're a, a sales, uh, person, you're supposed to be able to, to open a market, you have to figure out is there demand for my product already or are we trying to educate the, the public or, or our target audience that you have a problem and we're better off at solving it this way. So it, it comes to kind of the classic question of demand generation versus, um, you know, the, um, lead gen. Yeah. And so if we go to things like problem solving content, it's always very helpful even helping people get upsells and more outta the products like, you didn't know you could do it with this. Um, so problem solving content is one thought leadership content CEOs and executives everywhere, especially if you're selling to that executive B2B audience, they want insights that help them think differently. They want insights that help them move faster, avoid challenges and roadblocks. Like that type of content's very helpful. Um, they want to hear from people that are not you, that are having a good product or service experience. So you can say all day long, Yeah, we'll take care of you. But that's where case study content, and especially like the hot item of user generated content, if it's, so that's HubSpot hacks is helpful I think for HubSpot because we started creating that content without being part of like a HubSpot hired us to do all of this. Yeah. And you can tell it's authentic. Um, and then the last piece is going to be helping them avoid challenges in this sale. So how do I make sure that I understand the products of product level, um, content, Um, this might be like, you know, specific objections, videos, that type of thing. Those, those kind of buckets are what we see working pretty well.

Dani Buckley: 7:47

Yeah, I love that you covered a lot of really important ones. And I think the key takeaway is you need a lot, right?<affirmative> Like that is the answer. Like, I mean, yes, start somewhere. I always tell people, you know, don't get overwhelmed by all the content you could possibly have. Start somewhere, but you do need to be consistently and ongoingly like creating things in these different buckets because your salespeople are gonna need that. And if they, like you said earlier, if they just keep setting up product sheet<laugh> right? Or that's all they've got, um, it, it, it, it's pointless. Um, you've gotta kind of keep growing and, and building this arsenal of resources.

Ali Schwanke: 8:21

Yeah. I think the hardest thing to remember in a sales capacity is we may think we had a really great meeting with the prospect mm-hmm.<affirmative>, and if we only remember 20% of what we discussed, the hot things remain in our brain and 80% of that flies out the window. Yeah. So the follow up content, what used to be, Hey, I'm just gonna leave you a brochure, guys, that's not gonna work anymore. Like, we're not putting a brochure on our desk and reading it. I'm not reading a digital PDF that you send me after the call of all the things you do not doing it. I need very specific, relevant information about the hot buttons we discussed and reminding me about the things that were covered in a, a way that that isn't, um, isn't"salesy."

Dani Buckley: 8:58

Yeah. And isn't templated. I mean, it might, there might be a lot of, uh, similarities of things that you do on, you follow up on a discovery call, but it should be clear, I think that it's kind of customized as person, like you said, hot buttons that they had, things they asked, um, and that sales people can easily find that stuff and kind of cherry pick it to match where that prospect's at.

Ali Schwanke: 9:17

Yeah. One of the most important things that I think marketers can do is sit in on sales meetings, because most sales folks are really good at listening to the prospect, what they're not typically, like most sales people are not good at this because it's not part of their job. They are not watching the prospect for their non-verbals. They're not listening for cues. Every time I'm in a sales meeting, my brain's like content idea, content idea, content idea. And I think if, if we get on board with those two items working together, you'll have a much better content strategy.

Dani Buckley: 9:46

I love that. I, I feel like we need to like, put that in the show notes today. Like, marketers sit in on sales meetings. Like, it's amazing how many marketers never have, I mean, they have no experience with sales, They've never actually like seen a actual sales call like, be conducted. Um, I think that's really unfortunately common. Um, so I just to say the content topic, who do you think should be creating the content for sales? Like, what do you see most often? I know that's a question we get a lot, and I'm curious your answer.

Ali Schwanke: 10:15

Yeah. Really, if, if there happens to be someone who's a director of sales enablement, some of those companies have folks like that where they have a little bit of both sides, both world's experience mm-hmm.<affirmative>, if it happens to be a marketing department, there needs to be a content educated sales executive that's signing off on that content. The biggest thing that I, that is a disconnect often is I can't send that after a meeting, therefore it's not valuable. And just like everything today, it's just, that's not a, there isn't a simple answer to any of those things, but for most logistics and let's say graphic design support, all the things you need to create content, it's most likely going to live in the marketing department.

Dani Buckley: 10:56

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Um, okay. So let's say an organization does have the right resources and content and, and process and strategy, all these things that we know are really important behind it. Um, but they don't have the technology. I'm kind of curious, uh, how much of a difference do you think this makes? You know, we sometimes see pushback that people don't wanna pay for it or don't wanna switch to maybe something more, um, up to date because it's, it's, it's feels challenging to do that. Um, yeah. What, how, what would you say to an organization about how important technology is in all of this and, and what they should be thinking about?

Ali Schwanke: 11:29

Sure. I use a lot of analogies to help people understand this. And one of the things that I say is imagine that you had a hundred people outside of your house and they were all ready to come in, but they were waiting for the right key. And they're just like walking around your house looking for the right key, but you had all of your blind shut, so you had no idea that there was a hundred people outside of your house looking for a key to get into your front door to come to this party. And that's really the, the, the blind spots that exist when you're not leveraging technology. So you're, you may actually have a specific number of folks that are in your funnel that are just kind of waiting to take the next step, and you're not able to even see that. So you completely ignore the opportunities and instead you spend all your time on this hot, like, let's just settle the people that wanna buy right now. How often does someone go from wanting to buy yesterday to today? And we're not even in their radar because we've only focused on people that say yes today. Yeah. So the technology conversation, I think is one that when we sell, because I'm an agency owner as well as a, a, a provider, I just open up my HubSpot portal and show them this is all the information that I have been able to gather from a, your experience with us. Imagine if you had this in your sales team's hands, how much of a difference that would make. And it just usually that like seeing me show them what their record looks like, they just go, Oh my God, I, Yeah. That's amazing. So I think it's like helping people understand what they don't know. And then I also let them know, if you close one deal, one deal, this pays for itself, doesn't it? Usually the answer is yes.

Dani Buckley: 13:01

Yeah. Yeah. Now I love that and I think, I love that we in this are the industry that we're both in. That we, we can show folks that we can show them their contact, record their history, we can show them the notification we get when they open our email. Um, it, it is really helpful to be able to do that. And, um, and, and yeah, I think if you haven't seen that, if you're listening<laugh>, you haven't seen how HubSpot can do that, uh, let you know, reach out. Like, let's talk, we'll show you because there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of intelligence. I think that's like what you're really speaking to. I mean, it's, it's intelligence that helps drive the content, the resources, the strategy, right? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, that's what really it comes down to. I think.

Ali Schwanke: 13:40

Yeah. It would be the same as the ability for you to understand how far along somebody is in their journey and what nobody today wants to be served content that's not relevant to their situation. Yeah. So, while we push back on all of this, I, I believe there's a, there's a fair debate on privacy, but while we push back on all of these things, we as consumers want someone to understand us be relevant and not waste our time. If you are not using technology to manage that sales process and content, you are most likely going to be wasting or intruding on people that aren't ready to talk to you.

Dani Buckley: 14:14

Yes. Yep. And, and what we want, we want our sales people spending their time on the best opportunities. I mean, I feel like it always comes down to that mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, so if some, if there there's sales leaders or, or you know, business leaders listening that are evaluating CRM and sales enablement tools, um, potentially for the first time. Cause there's actually a lot out there,<laugh> mm-hmm.<affirmative>, large organizations that, that don't have a CRM or maybe they, they did, you know, before they got burned and so they're like, Nope, we're, we're sticking of the spreadsheets or we're, you know, whatever. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, it kinda amazes me sometimes. I'm sure you too. Yeah. Um, or they're looking to make a switch. Right. Um, what are some key criteria you think they should be thinking about when deciding what is the best CRM for their organization?

Ali Schwanke: 14:56

Yeah. There's a couple of things that come up, regardless of the size of the organization, and one is how is your CO's team organized? And specifically CRM functionality. Are they going to be in the field? How will they be inputting notes? What is the structure of their meetings? Um, how do they consistently communicate with clients? Is it email, is it text message? All of those pieces are gonna be important. Cause I think what we've seen is if a leader who isn't in the sales field will come in and say, This is what our sales team does, and then we get on calls with the sales team and they say, Oh my gosh, I text all of my prospects. I don't even email them. Yeah. So we have to start saying, Okay, what is an SMS functionality that we need to look at inside of the HubSpot platform? There's plenty of partners that make that wi like super awesome and available. And now the new activity types, I'm so excited for LinkedIn. Messaging is huge. That's a huge part of the sales process. I don't know a lot of CRM platforms that are planning for the new types of ways that we co contact clients, which is why I love HubSpot. So that's one, one thing, how they work. The other thing is going to be, you need to really understand what your sales process is before you expect the technology to do amazing things for you. So too many times people will get a CRM and then they have really unclear deal stages. They have unclear, um, expectations to follow up. And that's not the CRMs fault. That's actually your strategy that needs work.

Dani Buckley: 16:14

Yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's kind of, it's just like with data, right? Crap and crap out<laugh>, it's like mm-hmm.<affirmative>, if you don't have the, the right strategy and process, um, to put into your crm, it, it's not gonna be that effective. Um, Okay. Great. That's really helpful. So I could sit and pick your brain all day.<laugh> do that.<laugh>. Um, so I wanna just kinda leave my last question to, to hear what else do you wanna share? What do we, what are, like, if there's anything that you wanna be sure salespeople or sales leaders know, what's your hot, hot take on something<laugh> so we didn't cover yet?

Ali Schwanke: 16:47

Yeah, Yeah. I think my hot take, and I don't know that it's, it's not mine solely, but I, I'm definitely a believer in the creator people led content movement. And as you see really successful sales people on LinkedIn, on Twitter, we're seeing them pop up on TikTok. There's a lot of people that just, quite frankly, they want to trust people before they trust the company. Yeah. And if you're sales people are sitting around waiting for marketing to equip them with content, that's, that's okay. What it, what what they should be doing is jumping onto the networks that they're on, establishing themselves. Cuz LinkedIn, let's say just for example, is a 24 7 trade show. We used to save our best travel, our times and whatever for these, these giant trade shows. And the sales people were on, we were building relationships for five days and then we went back behind our curtains. Now you're at that trade show every single day, Every minute of every day. Yes. And that's why you have to be present and not just your company. And you have to have a perspective. If I work for HubSpot, people won't trust me. If I just happen to regurgitate everything up the spot told me I need to have an opinion. I need to have experience. And if you're a salesperson, then you're good at that. You should have those things and they should line up with the company's philosophy. But then I build trust with you, Danny, and I know that you must work for a gate company. Therefore I trust the company. And I think that's something that we'll continue to see as we move down the line.

Dani Buckley: 18:09

I love that. I think, you know, good sales people, uh, use the content and resources and everything that are provided to them. And great sales people don't wait<laugh> for leadership to provide it for them. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, you know, and, and you hear a lot of excuses from sales people, like, Well, we don't have this, we don't have that. And it's like, great success. You can go out and you can create this stuff. You can be doing videos, you can be writing your own, you know, posts. You could be publishing articles on LinkedIn. There's so many things they can do. And so I really love that kind of final push of, of self responsibility in a way. Like, make it happen. And, and there's a lot of value in the individual having that thought leadership in addition to an organization of course, too.

Ali Schwanke: 18:49

Yeah. The biggest hurdle that folks usually have is, what do I say? How do I get started? So if that does happen to be an issue in your organization, the marketing team and, and those that are already finding success in their personal brand as part of their sales leadership should be helping equip their team. So if you need LinkedIn trainings, do it. If you need trainings on how to do, yeah. Email sequences, do it. Like, don't assume that your team knows how to do those things. Make sure that you understand the skill levels of your folks and, and equip them with whatever they need to, to make that possible.

Dani Buckley: 19:19

Awesome. Well, I think that's a great closing thought. And Ali, thank you so much for joining. Uh, it was so good to, to get to learn from you and share some of your insights. Uh, for those listening, you can get Ali's information in the show notes. Uh, follow her, check out the YouTube channel. There's so many. I mean, she's got a wealth of information and resources of course, cuz she knows how important it is,<laugh>. Um, so find all those links and, uh, to those. We'll see you on the next episode of Sell Smarter, Sell Faster. Until then, everybody, happy selling. Thanks for joining us on Sell Smarter, Sell Faster. Be sure to click that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And visit us on Sell Smarter, Sell faster.com to access tons of resources on the topics we cover on the show, or to get in touch with Shay or myself. And of course, you can find us on social media, including our personal pages on LinkedIn and Twitter. We'd love to connect and hear from you.